Abandoned: The 72nd Hunger Games
by DivineArrow
Summary: This is Seneca Crane's first year as Gamemaker, he plans to make these games as unforgettable as possible. They might not be a Quarter Quell, but he's got special plans for these Games. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the 72nd Annual Hunger Games!
1. The Reapings (Districts 1-4)

**72****nd**** Hunger Games**

**A/N: Hi guys! I'm back with another story. This is going to be like the 71****st**** Hunger Games, except it'll be like 100 times better! I've been planning this for a while now so I hope you like it. As a difference to my previous story, I'll start this story from the reapings so you get to know the tributes a bit better. I'll do reapings for Districts 1-8 and then I'll do train rides for Districts 9-12. All right so here's the chapter**

**P.S: I added second names to the tributes this time.**

**P.P.S: I'm adding emotional song lyrics to the beginnings of the chapters now, which kind of fit with what's coming :) It gives everything a more dramatic feel to it :D**

**Prologue:**

This is Seneca Crane's first year as Gamemaker, he plans to make these games as unforgettable as possible. They might not be a Quarter Quell, but he's got special plans for these Games. Ladies and gentlemen, let the 72nd Annual Hunger Games begin!

**Chapter 1:**

**The Reapings (Districts 1-4)**

_"It's a thief in the night  
__To come and grab you  
__It can creep up inside you  
__And consume you  
__A disease of the mind  
__It can control you  
__It's too close for comfort_

_Put on your pretty lies  
__We're in the city of wonder  
__Ain't gonna play nice  
__Watch out, you might just go under  
__Better think twice  
__Your train of thought will be altered  
__So if you must falter be wise"_

_Disturbia – Rihanna_

**District 1:**

**Claire Cludiant's POV**

Mother wakes me up. It's reaping day! It's finally the special day I've waited for all my life! They day I volunteer. I must make a really good first impression, all of Panem will be watching. I wear my sparkling golden dress with my silver ballerina's. I tie my hair in a braid and put on some sparkly eye make-up. Perfect. I walk downstairs and have breakfast with my family and my little sister. It's my little sisters first reaping and she's a bit nervous, not for herself, she knows I'm going to volunteer, but she doesn't want me to. I keep telling her that I'm not going to be an idiot when I'm in the arena. Our tributes last year were both careers. Unluckily though, we had two idiots last year. The boy died on the first day! During the bloodbath! He made District 1 look as bad as the disgusting outline Districts. The girl, Tiffany, made it to the final 7, but she died right after they did interviews. She was a bit of an idiot too. She challenged an alliance of two when she was alone. 2 against 1, she really thought she could win?

I finish my breakfast and walk with my mother to the town square. I teach my sister how to sign in and we sign in together. She goes to the 12-year-old section and I head to the 17-year-old section. I meet my best friend in the whole entire world, Abi. We do everything together, from training, to shopping for dresses. She quit training when she was 15, she said she was bored of it and her parents supported her decision, as they didn't want her to volunteer either. She comes to the training center every once in a while to visit me and watch me train.

Our mayor starts to read the same boring speech he reads every year. I zone out and think about how I should come along as for my interviews. Should I be confident and vicious? Smart and sexy? Or quiet and reserved? I snap back to reality when the escort comes running in towards the microphone.

"Welcome District 1, Welcome to the 72nd Annual Hunger Games!" her voice booms across the town square.

"Lets hope that it's a good year for District 1! Well, as usual, ladies first." she walks over to the girl's glass bowl and digs her hand right to the bottom of it. She quickly picks a slip and walks back to the center of the stage where the microphone stands.

"Our female tribute is… Vivian-"

"I volunteer as tribute" I cut her off before she can finish. I quickly run up to the stage. I feel everyone looking at me.

"What's your name dear?"

"I'm Claire Cludiant, and I'm supper excited to be in this year's Hunger Games!" I say excitedly. The escort walks over to the boys' bowl and takes a slip from the edge of the bowl. She walks back to the microphone.

"And our male tribute is… Elliot Je-"

"I volunteer" a tall 17-year-old emerges from his section and confidently walks up to the stage.

"Great! Another volunteer! What's your name?"

"Keaton Gold, and District 1 will have a _very _good year." So much arrogance. Ugh. We shake hands and I shoot a menacing glare. We're then led into the Justice Building.

**Keaton Gold's POV**

I wait patiently in the waiting room. The couches are of the finest materials, and photographs of the past victors fill the walls of the room. My picture will soon be up there. I just can't wait!

My family is the first to visit me. My father is a trainer at the training center. He reviews everything with me and gives me some extra information about the Capitol and what my personality during the interviews should be. My mother gives me a long hug and my father pats my back, they leave and Emerald comes into the room. She has a pretty big crush on me, but I just consider her a friend.

"Don't worry, I'll come back." I convince her, we hug and she leaves. A few more of my friends come in and they all congratulate me and wish me luck. They leave and I'm escorted towards the train.

I think of strategies for the games. I haven't really given my strategy a big thought. I just focused on learning skills and tips but now that I come to think of it, I never really thought about what kind of approach I'm going to take to the games. Definitely not the boy from last year's approach! He died during the bloodbath! The worst part is that he was also a volunteer… What an idiot. Well I guess I'll talk strategy with my mentors and I'll figure something out when I meet the competition.

We arrive at the train and I'm quick to get onto it, I'm impressed by all the luxury and all the decorations. There's even more than in District 1!

**District 2:**

**Melissa Hemmis's POV**

I'm so excited for today! I'm going to volunteer! I'm only 16 and I've been allowed to volunteer because I was better than the 17 and 18 year olds. I was always a natural, ever since I started training. It was just a matter of time until I'd get to volunteer.

As I head to the town square I think of what I'm going to come across as during my stay at the Captiol. I'm really good looking! So I should probably go for a mysterious and sexy approach. I think it would work pretty well. I'll discuss my personality for the interviews with my mentors later. I have to focus on volunteering now. I know that there are a few girls that wanted to take my place this year, but I can't let them do that. I have to be the first to volunteer. I'm one of the first there, but I don't care, I like being early for things. I head to the 16-year-old section and wait there. My parents finally arrive with my older brother, which is too old to for the reapings.

The mayor takes the stage and recites the annual speech. I've heard this speech so many times, I literally know the words. The escort comes and takes over once he's done. I notice that the escort is different from last years escort. I think this used to be the District 7 escort. There wasn't even a District 7 victor last year, why would she get promoted? Is it because both of District 7's tributes made it to the final 6? Possibly. I personally don't care.

"Welcome District 2! As most of you may have noticed, I'm a new escort! I used to escort District 7's tributes but now I've been promoted to District 2! My name is Kiara Lumme and I'm supper excited to be your new escort! Are you all excited?" There were a few cheers from the crowd, some people in 2 really like the games. We are a career District after all.

"Wonderful!" Her voice starts to get annoying. It's so screechy and loud.

"How about we start off with the girls." She walks over to the glass bowl and takes the first name that she sees.

"Cristi-"

"I volunteer as tribute!" I don't even let her finish saying the first name. Good, I was the first to volunteer. I walk up to the stage, trying to be provocative. I'm wearing my short skirt with my long high heel boots and my strapless top.

"A volunteer! How exciting! What's your name?"

"I'm Melissa Hemmis, and I'm going to win the Hunger Games."

**Logan Voss's POV**

"I'm Melissa Hemmis, and I'm going to win the Hunger Games."

That's what you think.

"For the boys."

"Caleb Joh-"

"I volunteer!"

"Another volunteer! I think this is going to be a great year for District 2!" I walk up to the stage with a smile. Oddly enough, both of District 2's tributes are good looking this year. The girl, Melissa or whatever her name is, looks pretty hot, and I'm quite good looking myself.

"My name is Logan Voss, and I'm going to make District 2 proud" I shake hands with my Districts partner and we're escorted into the justice building. My family is soon to come. I don't have any siblings, and my dad died a few years ago, so by family, I mean my mom. She comes in and wishes me good luck and tells me to take care of myself and to watch out. She never wanted me to volunteer, but I've always wanted to have the experience of the games. I want to see how it feels like to be in the games, the whole experience. Some District 2 victors are completely nuts, and I want to know why. What's so important about these stupid games that can make a person go completely insane. Killing a bunch of idiots can't be that bad.

Ellie comes and visits me, she tells me to be brave, we kiss and she leaves. Sarah arrives. she says she'll miss me quite a lot. We also kiss and she eventually leaves. A few more friends come by and we all say our good byes. I'm finally left alone. I can now strategize. I'm obviously going to use my looks as an advantage, it'll help me for my interviews and chariot rides. I'll come across as sexy and charismatic, not a hard approach I think. It'll work well. Good, now I just have to see what my competition is like.

**District 3:**

**Ariadna Meyer's POV**

As I walk over to the town hall, I wonder what the odds of me winning the games are. I'm 15 now, my name's in the reaping bowl 5 times, 4 times because I've been eligible for the games for four years and the other slip is because I signed up for tesserae when I was 13, we weren't in a very good financial situation, and I figured it'd help. It's just one more slip after all. What harm can it do?

I'm late, I always am. I'm the last one to sign in and I run towards the 15-year-old section. The mayor has already said the speech and the escort is already headed towards the glass bowl.

"This years female tribute is… Adriana Meyer"

Who's she? I repeat the name in my head once again and I'm horrified. It's me. I've just been reaped. But how? My name is in that bowl 5 times! There are thousands of slips in that bowl! How can it be me?

I slowly walk up to the stage. I feel their stares pierce me. They all just step aside, as if I was infected with some deadly disease.

"Come on dear, we don't have all day" I run up to the stage, the escort has already moved on to the boys' bowl. Well gee thanks.

"And our male tribute is… Darren Hacker" A small 14-year-old comes out of the group of boys and onto the stage. A 15 and a 14 year old? Not a great mix for District 3 this year. It rarely is anyway. We haven't had a victor for like 8 years or something. How sad.

**Darren Hacker's POV**

My family bursts into the room. It all happens in a blur. They all just wish me luck and hug me and try to make it all emotional. I try to reassure them, saying that I'll be home in no time, but we all know that's a lie. They leave and a few of my friends come in. They all wish me luck as well and before I can even take it all in, time's up. We're escorted to a car that will drive us to the train. The escort doesn't stop blabbering about how amazing the Capitol is, and about how much we'll love it. I just zone into my own world and try to forget the recent events.

**District 4:**

**Sophia Press's POV**

REAPING DAY! This is going to be A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I can't wait. District 4 will have another victor. Despite the fact the we had a victor simply 2 years ago, it doesn't really count. Annie Cresta, that poor girl is insane. Like seriously? It's not _that _bad. Plus she had it easy! She wasn't even a career! The only reason why she won is because of the stupid dam that broke, and of course because her brother protected her. And don't even get me started on last year's tributes. At least the guy was a career, but the girl. She was just a rich brat from the rich families of 4. She didn't even have any skill! And she ruined the District's pride by letting herself get killed by the weakling from 8. Well, at least the girl from 8 died in the process. The guy wasn't so bad. He was a career, and he came 4th, but he still let himself get killed by a boy from 7. Oddly enough, the boy also died in the process. So the 4 tributes last year killed who they got killed by, a very rare thing in the Hunger Games.

The mayor finishes his speech and the escort is already digging her hand in the glass bowl.

"Alisha Keys!" I wait for a little while before volunteering. I know it's risky because someone might take my place, but I don't want to rush it, I want to preserve the moment.

"I, Sophia Press, would like to volunteer as tribute!" I call out. Perfect. I walk up to the stage with a huge smile on my face.

"Well Sophia, any words for your District?"

"I'm going to bring pride to District 4!"

"Wonderful, and on to the boys"

"Our male tribute is… Kai-"

"I volunteer as tribute!" A 16-year-old boy calls out. Two volunteers? That's a bit unusual for 4. We _are _a career District, but we usual only have 1 volunteer. Having 2 usual means that we're probably going to have a good year.

"And what's your name?"

"My name's Dale Alderman, and I'm also going to be my District proud!"

"May I present to you, your tributes from District 4!"

**Dale Alderman's POV**

"You may shake hands" Squeals the escort into our ears. Her voice is so high pitched! We shake hands and we move into the Justice Building. My family comes in to hug me. My mom wishes me luck and begs me to come back. I obviously will, why did she think I'd volunteer if I were not sure I was coming back? My dad gives me some last minute tips, and I'm sent off into the car to meet my escort and my District partner. Wow, I can't believe all this is already happening. I've trained all my life for this moment, but I didn't know it would all happen so quickly. It just makes me more excited for the next few days! First I need to focus on strategy with my mentors. I'm also quite curious as to who I'll be facing in the arena, I'm intrigued to see the recap of the reapings. So many things are going on and the games haven't even started yet! This really _is _going to be a roller coaster ride isn't it?

**A/N: Ok! :) So we've got the first 4 Districts done! Yeeeeaaah Anyways, I know the reapings were kinda boring but things are going to get better with the other Districts! Once again, thanks for reading!**

**- DivineArrow **


	2. The Reapings (Districts 6-8)

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back with the rest of the Reapings. As I said before, I'm only going to do reapings up to District 8. Districts 9-12 will get train rides. Reapings get boring after a while and I want to include the train rides without having to put up like 3 extra chapters just focused on the train rides for every single District :/ Anyways here's the reapings for Districts 5-8 Enjoy :D**

**Chapter 2:**

**The Reapings (Districts 6-8)**

_"And I would run,  
__And I would sing,  
__And I would cross a stormy ocean,  
__If I could be with you_

_And I would run,  
__And I would crawl,  
__And I would walk a weary desert,  
__If I could be with you  
_

_And I could bring you in,  
__I'd be whole again,  
__I could scream out, I love you,  
__If I could fly"_

_If I could fly – Charity Chapman_

**District 5:**

**Silvia Heffernan's POV**

It's another dreadful day in District 5, except today, is more dreadful than any other day. Today is reaping day, the worst day of the year. And, I'll be the first to say that the odds are not in my favor. I'm only 15 and my name is in that glass bowl 16 times, 4 times because I'm 15, and 12 times because I've signed up for a lot of tesserae over the last 4 years. There are thousands of 12 to 18 year old girls in 5, but considering I'm 15 and I have my name in more times than many of the 18-year-olds, I'd say the odds are really not in my favor.

My brother is 11, still not eligible for the reapings. With a bit of luck, he'll never get reaped. Hold on let me rephrase; with a _lot _of luck, he won't get reaped. We walk towards the town square, our parents are probably still having breakfast, they're always late for reapings. I quickly sign in and my brother heads towards the audience with his friends. I zone out completely, I just go into my own little world. When I zone back in, the escort is already heading to the girl's bowl.

"District 5's female tribute is… Silvia Heffernan" Well, what can I say? I myself said the odds weren't in my favor, and almost mockingly I've been reaped. Oh well, it was bound to happen sometime. I always knew I was going to get reaped; it was just a matter of time before I would.

The escort heads to the boy's bowl.

"And the District 5 male tribute is… Braydon Serre" A tall 17-year-old takes the stage. If this is the competition I'm up against then I doubt I'll make it past the bloodbath.

**Braydon Serre's POV**

"You may now shake hands"

I shake the girl's hand and head into the Justice Building. That girl, Silvia, she looks a bit scared of me. We'll see how things turn out in the arena. I may not want to kill. But I'll definitely do it when the time comes. As longs as I get back to 5, I'll kill anyone, even my District partner.

My mom barges in. She hugs me and wishes me luck. I tell her that I'll be back in no time. My girlfriend also enters. We hug and she also begs me to come home, I also assure her that I'll be back soon. She leaves and then a couple of my friends from school come in. The same, emotional, goodbyes happen, and then time's up. Everything happens in a blur, our escort the District 5 mentors escort us directly to the train station. In some other Districts they have to go by car, but, in District 5, the town square is quite close to the train station, so they make the tributes walk. Also for media purposes, so the Capitol can really get good shots of the District 5 tributes before entering the train. I think back to last year. Last year was dreadful. We were the second District to loose both of their tributes. The girl died during the bloodbath and the boy died during the evening of Day 2. Hopefully one of us will make it far this year, probably me. I'm not so sure of myself, but I have a bigger chance than Silvia. The best thing to do is to try and eliminate most of the weaker ones during the bloodbath without getting into a fight with the careers.

**District 6:**

**Mai Kilson's POV**

Reaping Day. No one ever talks on reaping day, it's all just small talk. I head to the town square with my brother, he's 16 now. Just like me. We haven't signed up for any tesserae this year, but we did a few years back. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I'd say I have about 10 to 18 slips. The chances of me not getting reaped are still quite large, but you never know.

My brother and I sign in, he heads off to the boys section and I quickly run to my friends at the 16-year-old rows. We talk a little, but not a lot, it's reaping day after all, no one is joyful. The mayor takes the stage, he begins his long boring speech which I really don't want to hear again. Before the mayor can even finish the last sentence of the speech, the escort comes running onto the stage.

"Welcome District 6 to the 72nd Annual Hunger Games!" She's probably really excited because we had a victor last year and she got her hopes up of having another one soon. Last year was an exception. The girl got quite lucky. But she had trained, not for long, but for 3 years. She volunteered for her friend. Apparently she was never planning on going into the games.

"As you might remember, we have a new victor! Please welcome the victor of the 71st Annual Hunger Games, Elle!" The 17-year-old girl runs up to the stage and makes a weak attempt at a smile. She sits beside the other District 6 mentor, Titus. No, not the Titus that went insane and resorted to cannibalism, another Titus. They only let sane victors mentor.

The escort digs her hand in the girl's bowl and pulls out a thin paper slip. "And this year's female tribute is… Mai Kilson" My heart sinks. Me? Out of the thousands of girls? Me? Well it had to be someone, I guess I was that someone. I walk up to the stage and look at the crowd, they all pity me, of course they do. I'm being sent off to my death.

"Our male tribute this year is… Evan Stein" I know him! He comes over to our house sometimes. My parents and his parents are very good friends, what a shame, he's only 13.

**Evan Stein's POV**

The reality of it all doesn't hit me. I just walk up to the stage normally. I'm nervous, but not as nervous as you'd expect. As I said before, the reality of it all hasn't hit me yet. This can either be good or bad. It can make me look really confident in front on the cameras for the time being, but when the actual reality of it all hits me, I'll have a massive breakdown.

"District 6's tributes! Mai Kilson and Evan Stein!" Mai… I know the girl. I always would come over to her house, who would've thought that we'd end up killing each other someday.

We're escorted inside the Justice Building and into two private rooms for visitors. My parents are the first ones there. Boom. The reality hits me just then, when my parents walked into the room. I just fall to the floor and start crying, a lot. It doesn't help that my parents cry with me. Time's up and I'm escorted out of the justice building and to the train station. I don't think there's a very big chance for District 6 this year. We at least had a victor last year. As for the male tribute last year, well, he had a pretty terrible death, courtesy of the Gamemakers.

**Elle's POV (Special POV just because she won last year)**

I can't do this. I'm not ready to mentor these kids. I'm going to need a lot of Titus's help. Just one year ago, I was the one being escorted to the train, fearing for my life. Who would've known that I was going to make it out alive, huh? At least I had trained a little. Even if it was only three short years, I trained. Of course I never planned on volunteering. I never asked for this. But when Alysha got reaped, I just couldn't sit back and watch her die. I just can't imagine seeing her in the same arena I was in last year. At least I already knew how to handle most weapons and a few survival skills. These kids don't have the preparation I had. If I already had major difficulties trying to win, imagine these guys. A 13-year-old in the arena? In 71 years there's never been a single victor that was younger than 14. That's including career Districts. I have no idea how I'm going to deal with all of this.

**District 7:**

**Abigail Gould's POV**

Once again, it's the time of the year, where to children are going to be sent off to die bloody and terrible deaths. What a joyful day right? My brother Nathan and I walk to the town square together. We're not twins, but we we've only got 1 year difference. He's 17 and I'm 16. Last year was pretty dreadful. I didn't really care about the boy dying, he wasn't very liked by the District. He's eyes were always set on the prize. But the girl, I knew her, quite well actually. We were good friends. I did think she could win. She tried pulling off the Johanna Mason strategy. But once the others discovered she wasn't a weak little girl, things didn't go as smoothly anymore, and she was killed by the 9 girl.

We both sign in and head to our sections. I see a few friends and I go stand beside them. The mayor begins his long, boring and useless speech. No one ever listens to this, why does he have to repeat it every year? Once he's done, the escort slowly takes the stage. By the look on her face, she's not happy. I heard last year's escort was promoted to a richer District.

"Welcome District 7, as most of you have realized, I'm new to District 7. I used to escort District 2, but I've been… _moved_ to 7" That explains it.

"Lets begin with the girls. Our female tribute this year is… Abigail Gould!" It takes me a while to understand the name that's been read. I repeat it in my head a few times, until it hits me. I've just been reaped. I'm being sent to my death. I slowly take the stage and immediately look over at Nathan. He's horrified, but at the same time he looks determined. Weird. When the escort digs her hand in the boy's bowl, I realize what Nathan's going to do. I want to scream at him and stop him, but his hand shoots up instantly.

"I volunteer as tribute" That idiot. Why? He knows that even if he tries to help me, we don't have a chance in the games. What is he doing?

**Nathan Gould's POV**

2 years ago, a boy from District 4 volunteered to help his sister, that had just been reaped in the games. The girl ended up winning. I always promised myself that if Abi would ever get reaped, I would volunteer. I never told her about it, I knew that she'd do everything she could to change my mind. So I kept it a secret, until now. I slowly walk up to the stage.

"And what's your name dear?"

"Nathan Gould"

"Nathan Gould? I'm guessing that was your sister, wasn't it?"

"Yes…" I look at the audience. I can't bare looking at mother. She's probably crushed. Imagine having all of your kids being sent off to die. Even if one of us makes it out alive, one of us will still have to die. Either way, my mom's already lost a child.

Once in the Justice Building, we're allowed to share the same room since we come from the same family. Before anyone can even come and visit us, Abi is already screaming at me.

"Why would you do that! Odds are we're both going to die now!"

"Abi! I'm doing this for you! Now at least one of us has a bigger chance of going home!" Just then, mother comes in. She doesn't say anything, just runs over to Abi and hugs her. Then she walks over to me, and hugs me.

"You shouldn't have done that, Abi would've been fine on her own." Whispers mother in my ear.

"I know, but now she's got a bigger chance of coming back now, trust me mom, one of us will be back."

"Time's up!" says the Peacekeeper, as he escorts mother out of the room. We're then lead to our mentors and escorted to the car that drives us to the train station. Definitely wasn't expecting the reaping to go down like it did today.

**District 8:**

**Lillian Conner's POV**

I wake up early today. It's Reaping Day, and I hate facing my family on this day, it just makes everything more dramatic, which I don't want. I quickly eat breakfast and leave the house. There's not much to do on Reaping Day. I think back on last year. I remember the girl really well. Mara. I didn't really know her that well. I talked to her a few times during school and we'd done a project together once. Her death was quite sad. I really hoped she'd win. She was such a nice girl too. It was that brat from 4's fault. She ended up dying as well, but she took another life with her. The boy, he was a bit stubborn, but he also had a horrible death. He didn't make it as far as Mara. I'm so lost in my own thoughts that I barely realize the gong siren going off telling me to head to the town square to sign in.

Once there, I sign in and the mayor begins the speech. I obviously don't listen to a word he says. Who does anyways? It's the same exact thing every year. I stopped listening when I was 13. Plus it's all lies anyways. The mayor finishes and signs for the escort to come on stage. She slowly walks over to the microphone. She's probably sick and tired of this District that hasn't had any victors for the last 14 years.

"Welcome District 8. Lets hope that we have a good year." She doesn't wait for a response; she directly heads to the girl's bowl.

"Our female tribute this year is… Lillian Conner" My heart sinks. Me? Seriously? I slowly walk out of the crowd and towards the stage, every step I take forward is a step closer to my death. The escort's already headed to the boy's bowl before I can even get to the stage. "And our male tribute is… Nillick Blessy"

"I volunteer as tribute!" A volunteer. Seriously? A huge 18-year-old heads to the stage. I'm going to die, there's no way I can beat him. And I haven't even seen the careers yet!

**Hunter Lever's POV **

"I volunteer as tribute!" I scream. District 8 needs a victor, and they need one soon. I've always felt out of place in this District. I'm not at all like the citizens of 8. The games have always fascinated me, while most citizens here hate them. I'm more of the career type I guess. Ever since I watched the games for the first time, I've always wanted to be in them. That's why I trained ever since I decided I would volunteer. Now I've been training for 8 years. I'm totally prepared for this. Finally, District 8 will have a victor!

"A volunteer! Incredible! Yes, well, District 8 hasn't had a volunteer for 25 years!" Why is it such a big deal that I volunteered? If I was in a career District the escort wouldn't make such a fuss about all this. I've always wanted to be from one of the career Districts, having the privilege of training in an actual Training Center would be amazing. I had to train in my basement!

"And what's you name?"

"I'm Hunter Lever, and I'm going to bring pride to District 8!"

We shake hands and we go into the Justice building. I'm probably not going to have any visitors. My parents are dead, I have no siblings, and my uncle, who I'm living with, hates me. I'm lucky he hasn't kicked me out of his house yet. But once I become a victor, I'll have a house of my own and I can live as I please. As I predicted, I have no visitors. Not that I care. Right now, close attachments are simply a burden. You get over emotional and show your weakness in front of the cameras.

"Time's up." The peacekeeper comes barging into the room. He's quite surprised that I'm sitting alone there. I stand up, and I'm escorted to the car.

**A/N: Whoop Whoop! We're done with the Reapings. Yes I know there's still Districts 9-12. But as I said before, instead of doing reapings for them, I'm going to do train rides :D Thanks for reading!  
-DivineArrow**


	3. The Train Rides (Districts 9-12)

**A/N: Theee train rides YAY! Glad I'm done with reapings tbh. :P Anywas here are the train rides for Districts 9-12 Enjoy! :)**

**Chapter 3**

**Train Rides (Districts 9-12)**

* * *

_"It's win or lose not how you play the game  
__And the road to darkness has a way  
__Of always knowing my name  
__But I think nobody knows  
__No no  
__Nobody knows no no no no_

_Baby  
__Oh the secret's safe with me  
__There's nowhere else in the world that I could ever be  
__And baby don't it feel like I'm all alone  
__Who's gonna be there after the last angel has flown  
__And I've lost my way back home  
__And oh no no no no  
__Nobody knows  
__No no no no no no"_

_Nobody Knows – Pink_

* * *

**District 9:**

**Rylie Naples's POV**

Two 13-year-olds from District 9 going off into the games. District 9 is definitely not having a victor this year, I'll be the first to say that. I feel so calm, I mean, I'm being sent to my death and I'm only 13, yet I'm calm and composed. I've always been the quiet one in the family, and I always comforted others when they needed it, so I guess I should comfort my District partner, since he's also 13. I would, but he's not really conscious right now. Yes. My District partner fainted when he got reaped. That's going to look great on live TV when sponsors are deciding which tribute to sponsor. I guess it doesn't really affect me, but I still feel sorry for the guy.

I'm called for lunch, as I walk towards the lunch table I see that my District partner has just woken up, and he's sitting down next to the escort. I probably should stop calling my District partner a "District partner", it's kinda ignorant. I forgot his name so I hope he doesn't ask me any questions for the time being. We start talking with our mentors. Hopefully they'll help us a little bit. District 9 hasn't had a victor for a while now. When I was about 3 or 4, I faintly remember people celebrating about having a new victor. I'm pretty sure that the boy sitting in front of us was District 9's last victor. I never bothered to learn his name though.

**Malik Stevens's POV**

I fainted on live television. Never thought that would happen. Rylie seems pretty composed, unlike me. Is she not scared that she's going to die in a few days? Or has she already accepted the reality of it all. Either way, it doesn't really matter. I need to focus on getting some tips from our mentors. Instead of our mentors talking, the escort just blabbers about how amazing the Capitol is and how lucky we are to have the privilege of visiting it. I'd like to see her in my place, she wouldn't be as joyful as she is now. If only the Capitol could get a taste of what the horror of the games are like.

I remember last year. It was a pretty good year for our District. We were very close of having a victor, if it weren't for the stupid career girl from 2, I'm pretty sure we could've won. The boy came 11th and the girl came 3rd. Pretty good, but you still end up dead, so it's not like it matters what place you come if the final result is the same. Whether you're first or second, you still die, it's the same fate no matter what position.

**District 10:**

**Iris Perricone's POV**

I would've thought that the escort would've talked more, instead she lets our mentors give us tips. Felix, the male mentor, takes Andrew, my District partner, to his room to talk about strategy. So the games have already started, have they? Fine then, I can also play like that. My mentor seems more composed than Felix. Felix is a bit more energetic and careless. While, Yasmin listens more to what the tribute has to say. Last year was a terrible year for District 10. We were the first District to loose both their tributes. The girl died in the bloodbath, and the boy died during the morning of the second day. This year is going to be different. I have to win. I have a sick sister at home, if I win, I can get her Capitol medicine that will cure her deadly disease. That's why I'll do everything I can to get home, I have to, for Teresa. I'm her only hope, if I die, then she will too once her disease develops. But she's got a chance at a life now.

**Andrew Stang's POV**

"Any particular skills that you have?" Felix asks. Hmm, well I'm the butcher's son so I'm good with knives.

"I'm pretty good with knives."

"Good that'll come in handy, what about survival skills?" Well being from 10 and all, I'm pretty good at hunting.

"I know how to hunt."

"Alright, that's good, there's still many survival skills that you can learn. Since you're already familiar with knives, then I'd say focus on the survival skills during the first few days at the Training Center. The last day learn about weapons. Maybe improve your knowledge on knives or learn a new weapon, try a long distance weapon of some sort, that'll come in handy. Good. You're good to go, we're going to watch the recap of the reapings, I suggest you come watch, it'll be useful to see your competition."

"Ok" I simply say and follow my mentor into the video room cabin, where we find Iris and Yasmin also talking strategy as they investigate the reapings in detail. Hmm, so she's also got her game on. I'll have to watch out for this one.

**District 11:**

**Makayla Zideck's POV**

We walk into the television room to watch the recap of the reapings. Our mentors haven't really figured out which mentor is going to help which tribute, so we've just gone over some basic tips. I hope I'll get Seeder she seems nice.

Chaff, the other mentor, turns on the TV.  
"We'll begin with District 1 and end with 12."

The Capitol seal lights up the TV and then District 1's seal comes on. The usual, nothing particular about this District 1 reaping. We see a girl with blonde golden hair volunteer. And a boy with bronze hair volunteers as well. Claire and Keaton, District 1's tributes. District 2 is exactly the same, except they seem much more determined. Once again two volunteers. Melissa and Logan. District 3 has a skinny 15-year-old-girl that shakily walks up to the stage. Ariadna. Nothing really special about her. The boy, Darren, is 14. He also seems pretty scared. I hope that's not what I looked like when I walked up to the stage. District 4 has two volunteers. Dale and Sophia. Damn, so many careers. These careers look tough. These games aren't going to be easily won, not even for the careers themselves.

**Tristan Ray's POV**

The District 5 seal comes on. So far we've got 6 careers, that can't be good. The 5 tributes seem pretty weak, just like the 3's except their a bit older. I'm not very good with names, so I only remembered the girl's name. Silvia. District 6, and the home of last year's victor. Two average tributes are reaped, I think the male is quite young, though. District 7. An average 16-year-old girl is reaped, and then another regular 16-year-old boy is reaped, but to my surprise, some guy volunteers. He's the girl's brother. So he volunteered to help her? A bit stupid if you ask me, now at least one of them is going to die for sure. Their family is going to loose at least 1 child certainly now, and that's hoping one of them makes it out, which is unlikely. District 8 comes on. I zone out a little, but what snaps me back to reality is the sound of a boy shouting that he volunteers. He doesn't seem to have any relation to the girl, he doesn't seem scared either. He's got this expression of determination, a bit like the careers. These games are packed with careers! I can't help feel sorry for District 9. Two 13 year olds, and one of them even fainted during the reaping! By the time District 10 comes on I've already zoned out again.

**District 12:**

**Autumn Govern's POV**

Now it's District 10. A 14-year-old girl gets reaped. She seems determined though. The boy is 16 I think, we can't really see which section he's coming from so it's a bit confusing. District 11 comes on, a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy are reaped. The boy seems quite strong, the girl is quite forgettable though. Then finally, our District comes on. I see myself shakily come out of the 16-year-old section and walk up to the stage, and I then Austin come out of the 15-year-old section and walk up to the stage, we don't stick out either. Unless we make a big appearance at the Capitol, I think that we won't be getting any sponsors. It's not like they sponsor tributes from 12 anyway, they all know we're going to die. Even we know it. The Capitol seal comes on once again and the anthem plays as they show a list of the tributes. Austin turns off the TV and heads to his room and I follow. Haymitch just falls asleep on the couch.

**Austin Pelikan's POV**

I arrive to my room. What a day. I lay in bed for hours, the next few days I'm going to have sleepless nights. Obviously. How could you sleep knowing that you're going to die in a few days? There are so many things I wish I'd done back in 12 that I never had the courage to do. There are so many regrets too. The thing that scares me the most, is that when I die, which is going to inevitably happen, I'll just be one more forgotten tribute. I won't be remembered, except by my family. But the second my face leaves the sky the night of my death, I'll just be another forgotten soul, like the hundreds of other dead tributes that died before me. I don't want that to happen to me. I wasn't brought on this earth to entertain some sick fools and then be forgotten. I just wish there was a way to show them, that I'm not just another tribute that they can use as a tool and throw away once their done. I'm a human being! I have feelings! I have thoughts and opinions! That's why I hate the Capitol, because they use us tributes, as if we were toys.

**A/N: Ended on an emotional note, but I didn't really know what to have Austin talk about since there wasn't anything happening, so as usual, I just made him go on a rant about how the Capitol is unfair. Anyways! Up next will be the Chariot Rides! YAAAAY! :D**

**- DivineArrow**

**Tributes:**

**District 1:**

**Female: Claire Cludiant**

**Male: Keaton Gold**

**District 2:**

**Female: Melissa Hemmis**

**Male: Logan Voss**

**District 3:**

**Female: Ariadna Meyer**

**Male: Darren Hacker**

**District 4:**

**Female: Sophia Press**

**Male: Dale Alderman**

**District 5:**

**Female: Silvia Heffernan**

**Male: Braydon Serre**

**District 6:**

**Female: Mai Kilson**

**Male: Evan Stein**

**District 7:**

**Female: Abigail Gould**

**Male: Nathan Gould**

**District 8:**

**Female: Lillian Conner**

**Male: Hunter Lever**

**District 9:**

**Female: Rylie Naples**

**Male: Malik Stevens**

**District 10:**

**Female: Iris Perricone**

**Male: Andrew Stang**

**District 11:**

**Female: Makayla Zideck**

**Male: Tristan Ray**

**District 12:**

**Female: Autumn Govern**

**Male: Austin Pelikan**

**Oh btw, I now have a poll you can vote on for your favorite tribute. It might just prolong their life in the games and maybe even make the win… who knows? Just go on my profile and click on Vote on Poll and VOTE! :) **

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back :) We've got the Chariot Rides! Yay! Alright so I'm not going have a POV for every single tribute, but I will comment on all of their outfits :) Please don't forget to vote on my poll on who your favorite tribute is, it might just prolong their life in the games. Anyways here's the chapter! :D**


	4. The Tribute Parade

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back :) We've got the Chariot Rides! Yay! Alright so I'm not going have a POV for every single tribute, but I will comment on all of their outfits :) Please don't forget to vote on my poll on who your favorite tribute is, it might just prolong their life in the games. Anyways here's the chapter! :D**

**Chapter 4**

**The Tribute Parade**

* * *

_"Losing your soul will cost you more  
__Than that life you're paying for  
__And all those friends that are just a chore  
__You're gonna need them more than ever before_

_All that glitter and all that gold  
__Won't buy you happy when you've been bought and sold  
__Riding wild horses you can't control  
__With all your glitter and all of your gold"_

_Glitter and Gold – Rebecca Ferguson_

* * *

**Sophia Press's POV District 4's Female Tribute**

"You're finally ready! We can take you to Aloysha now!" screeches my prep team in my ear. _Finally ready_? Ugh, my prep team just makes me feel like I'm some ugly being. I mean seriously? _Finally ready_? Hopefully my stylist will be a bit nicer. She enters the room and straight away greets me.

"Hello, we don't have much time, so I'll get straight to it" she waits for me to respond but I just nod.

"Good. Now your outfit will be a bit different than the regular mermaid outfits I usually do. I'm going to try something a bit different this year and hopefully it'll work." I nod in response.

"Alright. Well, this idea isn't really new, it's been done before, but not a lot because it wasn't very popular in the past. My plan is to take the concept, and, adapt it to the audience. You'll understand what I mean in just a minute." She heads over to the door. "I'm going to go and get your outfit so please wait here."

"Ok…" I simply respond. Hmm, I wonder what it'll be, hopefully it'll work, I need the audience on my side. She said she adapted it to the audience so it should be something for the target audience. When I begin to imagine what it could possibly be, she's back.

"So the idea is to have you in a swimsuit. But, it's modified to this year's Capitol fashion." She shows me the bright bikini I'm going to wear. I'm not really sure how to feel about this. I'm kinda going to be half naked on national television.

"So this year the Capitol citizens have really been into ribbons and laces. It's been a new trend lately. So I have attatched to long blue laces with little aquamarines on the to your top, so when you're moving forward on your chariot the laces will flow backwards. Then as you can see there are two huge ribbons on the sides of the bottom part of your bikini. These have shells on them. As a final touch I'm going to put this hairband on you and also attach a lace to it. The hairband is made in a way that you'll only see the lace itself and the hairband will look invisible, so it'll look like there's a lace coming from your hair which will hopefully look quite good. I've also made your lace match the laces coming from your top. The rest is just coated with gold, bronze and deep blue paint."

Wow, what a detailed explanation. The ribbons are massive, but they will look good from a distance, which is how most of the live audience will see me. I'm not so sure about the laces though, I have no idea if the hairband trick will work.

"Thanks for the explanation, I think it'll work." I simply answer as I get into my swimsuit. I wonder what Dale's gonna wear. He's outfit will probably be matching mine, I wonder how they'll add the laces onto there.

"Oh! I almost forgot! You'll also be holding a trident, nothing special about it, just a typical trident from your District."

I'm more positive about that, it'll show my fierce side.

**Evan Stein's POV District 6's Male Tribute**

We're dressed as taxi drivers! Taxi Drivers! I understand that District 6 is the District in charge for transportation, but does the Capitol really perceive us as taxi drivers? Is that all we are to them? _Taxi _drivers? It doesn't help seeing the others' costumes. Half of the Districts are dressed in stunning costumes. The girl from 1 is dressed in a golden dress and has a fur scarf with her that she holds around her waist. The boy is dressed in a golden sparkling suit. The District 2 tributes are in simple gladiator outfits. 3 are in lab coats with big glasses. District 4 is a bit stunning. The girl is in a bikini with huge ribbons and laces attached to it, and the boy has a skintight sparkly swimsuit. He's also got a few laces attached to his costume. It's a bit disturbing for me to look at him, but my District partner certinley doesn't mind. The 5 guys have shiny suits that have moving light patterns. They're going to have sponsors rolling in, their suits are mesmerizing. Then there's us, no comment. District 7 just arrives and they're both in tree-like costumes. Not really like they're usual tree costumes, but these are more adapted to their body shape and the branches leaves form in a pattern behind them making their outfits really pleasing to look at. The rest haven't arrived yet.

There's tension in the air, you can feel it. It's the first time that we're all going to see each other, after the parade we'll get a few minutes to talk to each other maybe I can start talking to some of the other tributes, it'd be nice to have an alliance for some time. It won't be very easy, considering that I'm only 13. But maybe I can ally with some of the younger ones as well, I remember the pair from 9, they're both my age. Who knows? I might actually have a shot at an alliance.

**Melissa Hemmis' POV District 2's Female Tribute**

I pay attention to the other tributes and their outfits. The boy from 4 looks amazing, he'll be getting a lot of sponsors, and that's not good for me. District 8 rolls in and they both have Capitol clothes. Their costumes are clothes that you'd normally wear for the interviews. I understand the relation with the District 8 theme, but they don't usually do this in Chariot Parades for 8. The Capitol might like this a lot. District 9 are in dresses with grains glued to them, pretty unoriginal. District 10 are cowboys and 11 are farmers. The originality isn't great this year, and my statement is reinforced when 12 comes in as coalminers. Wow, how boring. Oh well, the richer Districts will get more screen time this year. Specially, 4 and 5. As for us, we'll just be average I think. Oh well, I'll make up for it during the interviews and with my training score.

**Iris Perricone's POV District 10's Female Tribute**

District 2's chariot leaves the stables closely following District 1's chariot. I'm not really nervous, after all it doesn't really matter _too_ much what I do, they'll be filming the others the whole time anyway. Our costumes are boring and vague. We've been cowboys ever since I started watching the games! No wonder 10 hasn't had any victors in the last 13 years, we don't get any sponsors.

District 6 is now leaving followed by 7. I close my eyes for a second and when I open them, I see District 9's chariot leave before my eyes as the two 13-year-olds nervously wave at the public. Now our chariot is moving and I hear a few cheers, but nothing compared to when District 1, 4 and 5 came out. I do my best to smile and wave but I honestly don't care. This isn't going to determine whether I live or die, and as for sponsors, I'll hopefully win them over during the interviews.

We come to a stop. Wow, that was fast. I look over to my left and I see District 12 stopping Shortly after, President Snow's voice booms across the stadium.

"Welcome tributes, welcome to the 72nd Annual Hunger Games! We admire your courage and your sacrifice, and we wish you, Happy Hunger Games… and may the odds be _ever _in your favor"

I really hate this guy, with a passion. We're lead back into the stables and the crowd gives us one last cheer. I hate the Capitol audience, they're not cheering for us, but for our deaths. They can't wait to see us being ripped to shreds by one of their vicious mutations, or worse.

Once our chariot comes to a stop, I'm lead off it. We've got a few minutes to go talk to other tributes before going back to out District floors, but I'm not going to talk to people who are planning on killing me in a few days, so I just head straight for the elevator. I press the big "10" button and just before the doors are about to close, the boy from 4 jumps in.  
"Sorry, I just don't like talking to others when I'm half naked" He genuinely says as her presses the button with a "4" marked on it. I don't respond.  
"You're the girl with the sick sister aren't you?" he asks, how does he know?

"Yeah… how do you know?"

"Well, I'd just say that I'm observant"

"Why do you care anyway?"

"I kinda was forced into this, I don't really want to be here. I just thought that I'd like to help someone out during the games you know? I don't wanna be seen as one of those psycho killers that kill anything that moves. Since you have your sister back home and all, I thought I might help you out."

"You want to ally with _me_? Out of the 24 tributes, you choose the 14-year-old from 10?"

"I genuinely mean it. I'm not like them. I'm not like the other careers."

"Sure…" I say unsure of myself. I'll need more than a couple of words to trust this guy.

"Cool. Ok well see ya in training!" He says stepping out of the elevator as it comes to a stop. Oh god, what am I doing? Allying with a career, this seems fishy.

**Hunter Lever's POV District 8's Male Tribute**

I walk over to the careers, I should probably get to know them a bit before training. I see that the boy from 4 isn't there, it's just the tributes from 1 and 2 and the girl from 4. They all look at me as I join them. The boy from 2 looks like he's the leader, he sizes me up and looks a bit impressed.

"We were thinking about you joining us. Have you trained before?" The girl from 1 says.

"Of course, I've trained for 8 years." I say confidently. I look over at the pack and they all nod in approval.

"I'm guessing I can join?"

"Yeah, you're in." says the boy from 2.

"Good." I simply say and head off back to the elevator. I look at any other possible alliances forming, I see the girls from 5, 6 and my District partner talking. I guess that's good, if I die, I'd want my District partner to win. But I'll still kill her if it means my survival. And then there's the boys from 6 and 3 talking to the two weaklings from 9. Are the little ones seriously trying to make an alliance with each other? As if they even stand a chance. I see the pair from 11 and the pair from 12 talking, of course the poorer Districts team up with each other, idiots everywhere. I enter the elevator and press the "8" button. I'm gonna eat quickly and head to bed, I need to make sure I get rest for tomorrow, I'll be showing my skills to the careers and trying to intimidate the weaker ones.

**A/N: Okay, so I'm really excited to begging training! Some alliances are being formed, but they'll develop throughout the games. I've planned out the arena already, and it's gonna be very different than the normal arenas. That's all I'm saying. I'm really excited to write the initial cornucopia scene, but that'll come with time. I just realized that I hadn't put up the ages of the tributes in the previous chapter, so that's what I'm gonna do now, cuz the ages play an important part in some of the alliances. Don't forget to vote on my poll on who your favorite tribute is. Just go on my profile and click on Vote on Poll and VOTE!**

**Tributes (with age):**

**District 1:**

**Claire Cludiant (17)**

**Keaton Gold (17)**

**District 2:**

**Melissa Hemmis (16)**

**Logan Voss (18)**

**District 3:**

**Ariadna Meyer (15)**

**Darren Hacker (13)**

**District 4:**

**Sophia Press (17)**

**Dale Alderman (17)**

**District 5:**

**Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)**

**Male: Braydon Serre (16)**

**District 6:**

**Female: Mai Kilson (16)**

**Male: Evan Stein (13)**

**District 7:**

**Female: Abigail Gould (16)**

**Male: Nathan Gould (17)**

**District 8:**

**Female: Lillian Conner (16)**

**Male: Hunter Lever (17)**

**District 9:**

**Female: Rylie Naples (13)**

**Male: Malik Stevens (13)**

**District 10:**

**Female: Iris Perricone (14)**

**Male: Andrew Stang (16)**

**District 11:**

**Female: Makayla Zideck (15)**

**Male: Tristan Ray (18)**

**District 12:**

**Female: Autumn Govern (16)**

**Male: Austin Pelikan (15)**


	5. The First Day of Training

**A/N: I'm here once again with a new chapter. Training Day 1 :) Ok so the tributes begin to show their skills now! And yeaaah :D So I'm not really sure how the whole stay at the Capitol works but I think that the first two days are just basic training and then you've got the Gamemaker sessions on day 3 and the interviews on day 4. Anyways I hope you enjoy the chapter :)**

**Chapter 5**

**Training Day 1**

_"You could go the distance  
__You could run the mile  
__You could walk straight through hell with a smile_

_You could be the hero  
__You could get the gold  
__Breaking all the records that thought never could be broke_

_Do it for your people  
__Do it for your pride  
__Never gonna know if you never even try_

_Do it for your country  
__Do it for you name  
__Cause there's gonna be a day_

_When your, standing in the hall of fame  
__And the world's gonna know your name  
__Cause you burn with the brightest flame  
__And the world's gonna know your name  
__And you'll be on the walls of the hall of fame"_

_Hall of Fame – The Script_

**Ariadna Meyer's POV District 3's Female Tribute**

Training. I need to make sure to learn the survival skills. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be useless with any kind of weapon, so I should focus on what I actually have a shot at.

The elevator arrives to our floor and the doors slowly open. Darren and I enter and join the pair from 11, which are also in the elevator. Seeing the huge 18-year-old boy freaks me out. I'm going to be up against him! I never realized how big he was until now, and he's not even a career. We arrive to the underground floor and the doors open. I see all the careers and the pairs from 5 and 8 here. I thought we'd be the last ones. The elevator shoots back up once the doors close behind us. I feel so weak in front of the massive careers. I look over at Darren and he's slightly shaking. Standing here is so nerve racking, especially when there's 6 tributes planning your death. The pair from 7 arrive, which are followed by the pair from 10 and 12. I awkwardly attempt to try to talk to the girl from 10, but her answers are short and she doesn't look interested in me. I give up talking to people and just stand next to Darren as the pairs from 6 and 9 finally arrive. Darren walks over to the boy from 6 and starts talking to him. Darren's already got an ally? Wow, I'm impressed. Fine then, I got to find myself an ally before the end of training, that's my goal.

We're lead into the Training Center and the lead trainer begins to speak.

"Welcome tributes. As you can see, there's a wide range of different stations available to you. Each of them teaches a different skill that can be very useful in the arena. I recommend attending as many stations as possible; after all, these next few training days are crucial, if you want to survive the next two weeks. Oh, and a word to the wise, don't all rush to the deadliest weapons, the survival skills are just as important."

Alright, well I've already decided to focus on survival, and that's what I'm going to do. So when we're dismissed, I head over to the edible plants station and take the test before even looking at the plants booklet. I score 22%, clearly not good enough. I probably should've read the booklet first. After reading the whole thing twice, I score 66.5%. That's an improvement. I still need to score above 85% though. Time flies. Before I know it, we're being called for lunch. We started training at 10, and it's 1 now. Did I seriously spend 3 hours at the edible plants station? I didn't even notice that the girl from 6 had joined me. I probably should talk to her.

"Hey" I say as we take our lunch trays

"Hey"

"So you're giving edible plants a shot too?"

"Yeah, but it's not working out, my best is 54%."

"I could help you if you want" I suggest as I sit down at a table.

"That'd be nice, how about you join us? We don't really have anyone that's good with plants."

"I'd love to, who else is in it? The girls from 5 and 8."

Yay, I made myself an alliance, that's awesome! The two girls head over to our table and sit next to us.

"Hey guys, we've got a new ally! So what's your name?"

"Ariadna, District 3" I nervously say.

"That's cool, I'm Silvia, District 5" says the girl with black hair.

"And I'm Lillian, District 8" adds the tall brunette.

"Oh, yeah I forgot, I never told you my name, I'm Mai, 6." I smile and take a bite at my food. Well this is going good!

**Abigail Gould's POV District 7's Female Tribute**

Nathan and I basically stick together for the whole time, we went to the traps station and learned basic traps and snares. We then went to the camouflage station and we were both pretty bad at it so we soon gave up and went over to the fire station. Nathan excelled and I didn't do se well. We sit in front of each other during lunch and no one sits next to us. I wonder if Nathan would allow an ally, since he volunteered to protect me, would he trust another tribute? I ask him this.

"Maybe we should try to ally with someone" I suggest

"Why? How do you know we can trust other tributes?

"Well it would be easier to protect each other that way."

"I'm responsible for you Abi, I volunteered to protect you, I can't risk anyone backstabbing you. Plus, there can only be one victor, alliances are useless" His last comment saddens me a little. It reminds me that even if one of us makes it out of the arena, the other will die. So even if I somehow win, I will have lost my brother. And same thing for him, but he isn't planning on winning the games.

I look around to see who the other tributes are sitting with. The careers include 7 tributes, both from 1, 2 and 4 and the boy from 8. That's a big bunch. I look behind me and see the girl from 3, with the girls from 5, 6 and 8. I'm surprised at the fact that I can't remember any of their names. I try to think of any tributes I know the name of apart from Nathan. Well, there's Andrew and Iris from 10. I don't know why I remember them. There's Rylie from 9 and Makayla from 11. That's about it. I look to the table in front and see Rylie with her District partner talking to the boys from 3 and 6. To my left is Iris sitting alone, but she's looking at the boy from 4 in the career table. He looks back at her giving her a nod. Interesting, I'll keep an eye out for those two. I hear the lunch bell go off and I see the careers quickly getting into groups of two and heading to the weapon stations, the boy from 4 heads to Iris to talk to her. Nathan and I leave for the axe station. Coming from 7, we're both quite decent with an axe, so we'll give it a shot. I see the girls from 1 and 4 looking at us. Nathan decapitates a dummy and slices another one in the chest. I cut a dummy's arm and slice it in the abdomen, I look back at the career girls and they look mildly impressed but not stunned. I see the girl from 4 heading to the knife throwing station. I stop and watch her for a while, to see what I'm up against. Bull's-eye, not one miss. Impressive, but then again, she _is _a trained killer, I wouldn't expect any least.

"We should leave weaponry for the last day, lets focus on survival for now" whispers Nathan in my ear. I nod and we head over to the edible plants station.

**Autumn Govern's POV District 12's Female Tribute**

I see the boy from 8 and the boy from 1 glance over at us as Austin climbs up the rock-climbing wall. The boy from 1 starts climbing with us. He quickly passes me, and Austin. Soon enough, he's reached the end and he's climbing back down. The boy from 8 laughs at us. Ugh. I hate these guys, I start climbing down and I motion for Austin to climb down as well. Maybe it's better if we move on to another station. We head over to the edible plants station. We look over the booklet and try to memorize as many plants as possible. Austin gets bored and takes the test before finishing the booklet, he scores 39%. I finish the booklet and take the test, I score 66%. Not very good, but good enough. I'll come back here tomorrow. We move on to the fire station were we find the pair from 11 successfully making a fire. We join them.

After about 30 minutes of awkward silence and failing to make a fire, I turn over to the 11's.

"Hey, how did… you do that?"

"Oh, hey" says the girl slightly surprised.

"Well, it took us a while, but there's no real trick to it, you just have to not give up. We've been here for over an hour…" she responds.

"Oh wow, have you tried any other stations?"

"Yeah we've been to the edible plants station, we were pretty good at that since we're from 11. We tried the camouflage station, it also went quite well, but that's about it. We'll try weapons tomorrow."

"That's cool. Well, would you like to be allies?" I ask awkwardly.

"With us? Yeah that'd be great, I'll go tell Tristan." I smile and walk over to Austin to tell him the news.

"I've almost got it" he says

"Don't bother, we've got allies that can take care of that."

"What?"

"You heard me, I allied with the 11's."

"Okay well, do we even know their names?"

"Uhhh, no…"

"Yeah, you should probably get to know someone better before allying with them in a fight to the death."

"Okay! Well we can find out what they're like tomorrow during lunch, we should probably continue our training."

"Fine, then we should sort out who's gonna train what, we don't wanna end up all learning the same skills right? We want to all have a variety of skills."

"Right, so common lets go talk to them."

**Andrew Stang's POV District 10's Male Tribute**

I see the pair from 11 talking with the pair from 12. Everyone's making alliances. Is everyone really that stupid? There can only be one victor. Alliances will only last temporarily. Soon enough, people will start turning on each other. Plus, how can you know that your allies are not8 just trying to kill you somehow. Oh well, it's their problem not mine, I'll be just fine. Ha! I wonder how the career alliance break up will be like. They're all just idiots.

I finish the trap I was making and test it. Works perfectly. Great. It's probably time I move on. I go to the close combat station and watch the boy from 4 fighting a trainer. Another trainer comes to me and attends me. He teaches me a few techniques and I then fight him. It doesn't go as well as expected, but the next time I try, I manage to land a few blows on him. I see the boy from 4 leave, and Iris joins us. She's pretty good for her size, she's quick and agile and dodges very well. I probably could beat her though, if it comes down to it, I'm not sure if I would actually kill my District partner. I mean, if I die I'd want her to win. But if we encounter each other, I wonder if we'd fight or not. I guess I would. It would improve my odds of coming back. Oh well, it doesn't really matter, she'll probably die early. In the bloodbath or something. I focus back on the training session and dismiss her from my mind.

The bell goes off indicating the end of training. Wow, I spent the rest of the afternoon at the combat station. I go back to the elevator with Iris. We arrive to our District floor and exit the elevator. Before even getting to my room, Felix comes to talk to me.

"So how was training?"

"It went well, I learned a lot, but I'm not planning on making alliances, I think it's better not to trust anyone."

"Hmm, well are you sure you don't want to ally with Iris?"

"No, I'd rather not have allies."

"Sure, I guess that'd be fine. Just don't fool around in training, focus, this is the time where you need to learn as much as possible, it might determine whether or not you might survive the next few days."

"I know, I know" I say heading off to my room.

"Shower up before dinner!" he reminds me. Wow, what a day. I'm glad it's almost over. At the same time, I'm sad for every second that passes. I'm one second closer to the arena, and to all the horrors that await me.

**A/N: Okay! So that's a wrap :) I hope you enjoyed my chapter! PLEASE go vote on my poll on who your favorite tribute is :) You can vote for up to 3 tributes! :D Okay so here's the list of tributes :)**

**Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)

Male: Keaton Gold (17)

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)

Male: Logan Voss (18)

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)

Male: Darren Hacker (13)

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)

Male: Dale Alderman (17)

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)

Male: Braydon Serre (16)

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)

Male: Evan Stein (13)

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)

Male: Nathan Gould (17)

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)

Male: Hunter Lever (17)

**District 9:**

Female: Rylie Naples (13)

Male: Malik Stevens (13)

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)

Male: Andrew Stang (16)

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)

Male: Tristan Ray (18)

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)

Male: Austin Pelikan (15)


	6. The Second Day of Training

**A/N: Hey guys! I'm back with a new chapter! :D Guys I need you to vote on my poll.. just go to my profile and you'll see the poll above my profile! You can vote up to 3 choices out of the 24 tributes! Anyways… Here's the chapter :)**

**Chapter 6**

**Training Day 2**

"_Cause all of the stars  
__Are fading away  
__Just try not to worry  
__You'll see them some day  
__Take what you need  
__And be on your way  
__And stop crying your heart out_

_We're all of us stars  
__We're fading away  
__Just try not to worry  
__You'll see us some day  
__Just take what you need  
__And be on your way  
__And stop crying your heart out  
__Stop crying your heart out  
__Stop crying your heart out"__  
_

_Stop Crying Your Heart Out - Oasis_

**Malik Stevens' POV District 9's Male Tribute**

"Training Floor" says the robotic voice in the elevator. Another day of training, just one day closer to my imminent death. I think we're the last to arrive, but I then realize that the pair from 11 hasn't arrived yet. Rylie and I head over to our allies, Darren from 3 and Evan from 6. We're the youngest in the whole competition, I guess it's a bit odd that we ally together. But it's not like any of the other tributes would take us as allies anyway, and we wouldn't make it too far on our own, this is probably the best way to go. Who knows? Maybe one of us might make it out of here, I sincerely hope so.

The pair from 11 joins us and we enter the training center. We directly start training and my alliance heads over to the climbing station, I've never tried climbing before, this will be interesting. After 15 minutes of learning a bit of theory, we're allowed to climb. It doesn't go very well, Rylie and Darren end up falling off the wall. We decide to move on, we try out the knife station and learn some basics with knives. Evan and I are quite good at this, but Darren and Rylie not so much, so Rylie moves on to the dart station and Darren heads over to the traps station. I guess it's better if we all learn different skills, that way there'll be more of a variety of skills in our alliance. I slash a dummy a few times successfully. Satisfied, I move on to another station. As I leave the knife station, I see the boy from 1 destroy a dummy with a mace, once he's done, there's not much left of the dummy. That gives me the shivers. I also watch his district partner, Claire I think she was called, chop a dummy's head off with a curved sword. Yeah, I probably should reconsider the whole "maybe one of us will win" theory. I head over to the traps station, where Darren has made a trap that covers the enemy in a net. Oh wow, I probably should let him learn for a while, he's a quick learner. I think I should try out the bow and arrow station. Not bad, I manage to land around 70% of my shots on the dummy, the girl from 10 joins me, if I thought I was good, well then she's much better. She doesn't miss. All of her shots hit fatal areas of the dummy. That really is impressive, she's not even a career! I practice a bit more in the bow and arrow station until the bell goes off for lunch. As I walk over to get my lunch tray, I hear myself panting. Oh wow, I really have worked hard.

**Dale Alderman's POV District 4's Male Tribute**

I walk over to Iris that comes from the bow and arrow station before grabbing my lunch tray.

"Everything's going as planned, the careers think I'm on their side. We need to figure out a plan for the cornucopia, so meet me at the roof tonight." I whisper to her in her ear, she just simply nods. I grab my lunch and sit next to Claire.

"So, how are you guys finding the competition?" asks Melissa.

"Pshh, they're no big deal, I think the younger tributes are trying to form an alliance or something." Responds Claire mockingly.

"Oh _really? _Wow how sad."

"I know! I think it contains the boys from 3 and 6 and the pair from 9. It's a bit ridiculous, they were at the knife station earlier, and they completely failed." She continues.

"Okay, do we know any other alliances or possible threats?" asks Melissa once more

"There's a girl's alliance. It's the girls from 3, 5, 6 and 8, I think. They don't look extremely strong, but they seem smart." Sophia answers. "I think we should focus on taking them out during the bloodbath, the weaker ones will die with time they're not so important." She continues, she's got a point. It makes me wonder, is Iris one of the so called "weaker ones" I'm pretty sure she's referring to Evan's alliance, but Iris is still only 14, while the tributes in that alliance are 13, she's just on year older. It's probable, but Iris isn't weak, I know her skills, and I've already got a plan planned out for the cornucopia. She probably doesn't trust me yet, but I'll talk to her tonight, hopefully this'll work out, I really can't stand the careers.

**Mai Kilson's POV District 6's Female Tribute**

"I think we're doing pretty good, can you guys estimate what scores you'll get?" Lillian asks. Wow, she's already worrying about scores? I guess I should too, the Gamemaker sessions are tomorrow, this makes me wonder what I'll show them. I should probably go and practice at the stations I'm best at after lunch, so I can improve the score I'm going to get tomorrow, hopefully.

"I'm estimating a 7 for myself" says Silvia. Yeah, I'm probably at the level too, maybe an 8 if I really try.

"Alright, that's good, that's probably what I'm gonna get too. It's a good score, I think we should-" she's interrupted by the bell going off indicating that we can get back to training. We all head off to different stations. I head to the knife throwing station, to my surprise; I wasn't bad at knife throwing at all yesterday, that's why I'm coming back here today. I warm up a little and get training. The girl from 4 joins me. She attempts to intimidate me, and to be honest, she does a little, but I'm not giving in that easily. I'm not like the other tributes, which will walk away from the stronger careers. Even though I have to admit, this girl knows how to throw knives! She's amazing! I'm not so bad either though, I hit quite a few fatal spots on the dummy, but she hits the heart every time. After an intense hour of just knife throwing, I move on to the climbing station. I also do very well. After all, these are the stations I'm best at. I move on to the knots and snares station. I make a few simple traps and even learn a new one. I then proceed to the edible plants station. I don't do so well in this one, I score 77%, which is okay, but not great. I do have a great variety of skills so far though. Maybe if I improve in this station I could get an 8. I decide to continue learning all the edible berries by going through the booklet a dozen times. Next time I try I score 88%, so 10% better than last time, I can still improve. I'm feeling confident for tomorrow.

**Braydon Serre's POV District 5's Male Tribute**

I walk over to the boy from 10, which is training at the knife station. This can be a good chance at an alliance. But I have to show him my skill first. I take a knife and stab it into the dummy's stomach, I then stab it repeatedly on its chest. I look over at him, he doesn't look very impressed, but I decide to talk to him now anyway.

"You're pretty good with a knife I see." I say looking at the dummy he destroyed. He doesn't reply.

"There's a lot of alliances this year, it would be bad if went into the arena alone huh?" I continue

"If it's an alliance that you want, then you're not gonna get one with me." He replies coldly and walks away to another station. Well that didn't work very well. What was his deal anyway? Why wouldn't he want an alliance? I don't get it. I walk off to the spear station where the boy from 4 is practicing. I ignore the trainer trying to give me tips and head straight to it. My spear completely misses the dummy and lands on the floor right in front of it. I hear a girl laughing. Crap, should've listened to the trainer. I need to do better. This time the trainer stops me and gives me some advice. Next time I try, I improve. I actually hit the dummy, but I hit it in the leg. That still earns me a few laughs from the careers. It's getting annoying. They're just standing there, mocking me. I grab the spear angrily from the trainer for the third time and as I get into my throwing stance, I hear a few more laughs from their general direction. I lose control of my body, next thing I know, I've thrown a spear at the 1 girl. It misses her by an inch. She falls back in shock. I see everyone's in shock and surprised and I hear some of the Gamemakers screaming. Everything happens in a blur, my escort and my mentor are yelling at me when I snap back to reality. I just get up and leave to my room. Have I even had dinner? I don't care. I hate this, and I'm not going to sit there and listen to what my stupid mentors and some stuck up escort have to say about my behavior. That girl deserved it. I close my eyes and let sleep consume me.

**A/N: That's a wrap :) I really didn't know how to end the chapter so I just added a bit more tension for the tributes! :D Anyways I'm sorry I haven't updated a lot recently, I've been quite busy with school sooo yeah. Once again guys, please vote on my poll I really need more voters :P And I need your opinions on my characters… I wanna know who are the favorites, it might save their lives… All you have to do is go on my profile and click on "Vote Now" and then the poll will appear and you can vote up to 3 choices! :) Here's the list of the tributes:**

**Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)

Male: Keaton Gold (17)

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)

Male: Logan Voss (18)

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)

Male: Darren Hacker (13)

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)

Male: Dale Alderman (17)

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)

Male: Braydon Serre (16)

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)

Male: Evan Stein (13)

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)

Male: Nathan Gould (17)

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)

Male: Hunter Lever (17)

**District 9:**

Female: Rylie Naples (13)

Male: Malik Stevens (13)

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)

Male: Andrew Stang (16)

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)

Male: Tristan Ray (18)

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)

Male: Austin Pelikan (15)

**Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will be the Gamemaker sessions! :)**


	7. The Gamemaker Sessions

**A/N: Hey guys. I'm back with another chapter. This time, it'll be a bit more exciting. The past few chapter have been a bit boring sooo yeah :P Please, if you haven't done so already, go vote on my poll on who your favorite tribute is! You can vote up to three choices! :)**

**Chapter 7**

**The Gamemaker Sessions**

"_I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins  
__Spotlight on me and I'm ready to break  
__I'm like a performer, the dancefloor is my stage  
__Better be ready, hope that you feel the same_

_All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus  
__When I crack that whip, everybody gon' trip just like a circus"__  
_

_Circus – Britney Spears_

**Melissa Hemiss' POV District 2's Female Tribute**

The Gamemakers are going to evaluate us soon. I'm not particularly nervous. I'm confident with my skills. We're one of the only ones here, so we have to wait a while for the rest of the tributes to arrive. Once they do, the head trainer comes to talk to us.

"Two days have passed. You've been training for these last two days and now, the Gamemakers will evaluate you. Before that, you'll have 15 minutes to warm up in the Training Center, you'll then be asked to leave and the Gamemakers will see you individually. We'll start off with District 1, and finish with District 12. The female tribute will go first. Good Luck." She leaves, and the doors of the Training Center open. We enter. I basically run through all the stations I'll be performing at today. It includes mainly weapons, a few survival skills, climbing, and the obstacle course. That should get me a solid 9 or 10. Good enough. Soon, we're asked to leave the Training Center and the evaluation begins. Claire stands up as the robotic voice calls her name.

"Good luck" I whisper to her

"You too Mel, good luck" She responds, and heads off. I sit silently next to Logan and Keaton. I'm excited. I'll finally be noticed. No one ever noticed me back in 2. I was always considered the quiet girl. No one really acknowledged my presence. I was invisible. But now, it's different. I _will _be noticed. When I'm a victor everyone will know my name, I'll be famous across Panem, I won't be the little "quiet" girl anymore. And I make my first step towards fame today.

When I snap back to reality, Claire's coming back from the Training Center with a smile on her face and Keaton walks in. My excitement rises by the second. I literally cannot wait to show those Gamemakers my skills. Once Keaton walks out, I go straight into the massive center. 2's Training Center is way smaller than this one. I only just realize this now. The Gamemakers tell me to begin. I head straight over to the axe station. I'm pretty good at using axes. Once I'm done, I pity whoever tries to use these dummies, because there's barley anything left of them. I walk over to the mace station. I'm fairly decent with a mace too. I do very well. Then I see a weapon that catches my attention. I wasn't planning on trying this with the Gamemakers, and to be honest, it's a huge risk. But the weapon is simply beautiful. I walk over to it. It's a spiked chain ball, but without a handle, instead the chain is very long. I pick it up and start swinging it as if it was a rope. I swing down the spiked ball onto a dummy and completely destroy its head. I destroy a few more things with this deadly weapon. I don't even know what to call it. I guess it's some version of a spiked chain ball. I'm having so much fun that I don't even realize that time's up and the Gamemakers are dismissing me. Crap! I got carried away! I forgot to go to the rest of the stations… Ugh, I'm probably not gonna get any higher than a 9. Oh well, that's fine, it won't stop me from winning these games. I leave the Training Center with a smile.

**Silvia Heffernan's POV District 5's Female Tribute**

The boy from 3 leaves the Training Center looking somewhat satisfied with himself. The girl from 4 enters. I won't lie, I'm slightly nervous. I mean, if I'm not memorable, sponsors will simply dismiss me and look for some other tribute to sponsor. But I know I won't stick out from the crowd, what's the best I can do? 7, 8? That's not enough compared to what the careers are going to get… 9's 10's maybe even 11's… I'm so screwed. The girl from 4 leaves the Training Center and her District partner enters. I'm next. I look over to Mai, who is anxiously sitting next to Evan. She sees me looking at her and gives me a genuine smile. I make a bad attempt at smiling back. I probably look like and idiot right now. Oh well, why am I worrying about all these little details. I'm most likely going to die in the near future. The odds are clearly _not _in my favor. I've got the odds of 1 in 24 of coming out alive. And that's if everyone is of equal skill and strength, which is clearly not the case. We've got trained killers here. But then again, we've got 13-year-olds like Evan.

"Silvia Heffernan" Calls out the robotic voice as the boy from 4 leaves the Training Center. Here goes nothing.

I enter the Training Center and head straight for the climbing station. I climb up as fast as I did in training, which isn't bad, but I'll have to do a bit more to earn my estimated score. I head over the traps station. I make a few basic snares, and then get to the more complex ones, it takes me a while to finish the level 4 snare, which is quite a high level, considering the highest level is 5. Once I'm done, it works perfectly, sadly, my time's up just after testing the trap. Damn, I didn't think it would take so much time to make the trap, I could've gone to the knife station, at least I could've proved some decency with a knife. I'm satisfied though, I did well. I leave the Training Center and head over to Mai to tell her how I did, just like Ariadna told us after she finished.

"How was it?" she asks before I can even speak. Lillian heads over to us as I prepare my answer.

"I did well. I got a bit carried away while making a trap and I couldn't go to the knife station. But I'm quite happy." I respond

"That's good!" says Lillian excitedly. I nod and head over to the elevator.

"Good luck girls." I say as I leave.

I'm a bit more relaxed now. I let my mind wonder on the next few days. Tonight they'll broadcast our scores, and tomorrow night will have the interviews. Which means that tomorrow morning I'll be practicing for them and coming up with an approach to take based on my score. Ugh, it's all so stressful.

**Nathan Gould's POV District 7's Male Tribute**

"Go to all the stations we practiced, alright? Remember, it's edible plants first, then climbing, and finish with the axe station. Got it?" I tell Abi before she enters the Training Center.

"I'm not stupid Nathan, I know what to do, focus on yourself. Your score is just as important." She replies as the doors close behind her. Typical answer from her, should've expected something like that. It is true that I need to figure out an order for my session as well. I told Abi to do weapons last so the Gamemakers' last impression of us is that we're fighters, which is more likely to get you a higher score. Essentially what the Gamemakers want is a good show, and how do they get that? Bloodshed. And how do they get that? Tributes that know how to fight, so at the end of the day, what they care more about, is you being able to put up a fight against a strong tribute rather than memorizing the whole edible plants booklet. I'm not sure if my theory is right, but it seems logical to me, and Abi, which is the smart one in the family, so hopefully it should benefit our scores.

Okay, so taking that into consideration, I should start with the survival skills, making a fire and traps & snares. Then move on to physical skills, climbing and the agility run. And then end with the axe station. I probably won't have enough time to do all of those though. Since the fire making will take a while, I won't do it. The agility run should take me under a minute to do, so that won't be a problem. Climbing won't take too long either. So I'll stick with that too. I run over the station order once in my mind and just then, Abi comes out of the training center and gives me a thumbs up. I smile at her as I pass her and enter the Training Center.

"You may begin." Says the head Gamemaker, and so I do.

I head over to the first station. Traps & Snares. This is the station that's probably going to take the most time, so I don't want to get carried away. I just make two basic traps and quickly test them, they both work. One of them didn't work as well as planned, but it trapped the object, which was the purpose of it, so I'm satisfied. I quickly move on to the climbing station. I climb up the level 4 wall, which is the second highest level, behind level 5. I do this in a minute. I feel that my legs are a bit tired, but I'll try my best at the agility run anyway. I do the agility run quite well, not my personal best. It was simply an average score, which is very good since I'm a fast runner. I'm a bit tired by the time I get to the axe station, but I give it my all considering it's the last station. I chop off a dummy's head and throw the axe on another dummy's chest. I finish off my smashing my axe down onto a third dummy. I would've done more, but my time was up. I look over at the Gamemakers and they seem rather impressed. I leave the Training Center satisfied of my performance.

**Austin Pelikan's POV District 12's Male Tribute**

I sit down on the couch as Haymitch turns on the TV. I'm slightly nervous, but not a lot. It's not like my training score will determine if I get sponsors or not. No one ever sponsors 12 tributes. So what does it matter? I probably won't get a high score anyway.

"After a period of close evaluation, the Gamemakers have decided on the final Training Scores" Caesar's voice booms across the living room. "I will now reveal the training score for each tribute to all of Panem. You will be able to know how your favorite tribute has been doing!" He continues. The District 1 seal appears on the television, and then the girl from 1 appears on the screen. "From District 1, Claire Cludiant, with the score of… 10" A big 10 flashes next to her. The boy appears, and the 10 fades away. "Also representing District 1, Keaton Gold, with the score of… 10" The same 10 flashes onto the screen, and then the boy and the score fade away. Well no surprises there, they were careers after all. The District 2 seal comes on now. The 16-year-old girl appears on the screen "Melissa Hemmis, from District 2, with a score of… 9" That's still a pretty good score, but I thought she'd also get a 10. She seemed better than the girl from 1. Oh well, it's still a good score. The boy appears on the screen this time. "Logan Voss, also from District 2, has a score of… 10" Once again, as expected, no surprise. These are a good bunch of careers, you can feel a bit of tension in the room. "Moving on to District 3." Caesar announces as the District 3 seal flashes on the screen. I'm getting annoyed. Everything's going so slowly… just show me my score already! We're only on District 3. "District 3's Ariadna Meyer, with a score of… 6." The boy appears on screen. "Darren Hacker, with a score of 4" Yeah, these two are bloodbaths. No offense, but they're not going to make it too far in these games. I mean a 4? How do you even get that? I'm no career, but the boy could've at least tried. District 4 comes on, another career District, both tributes score a 9. The District 5 seal comes on and I'm a bit relieved that we're done with the careers, but then I remember that there's still that boy from 8 that's a career. "Silvia Heffernan from District 5. With a score of… 7, and Braydon Serre, with a score of… 8" Wow, pretty good scores right there. I never really acknowledged the 5 tributes at all, I should probably watch out for the boy. "District 6. We're halfway there folks. Mai Kilson has a score of… 8" Seriously? An 8? I never payed attention to her either. How did she manage that? I'm a bit relieved when the boy scores a 6. But I'm still surprised. Definitely wasn't expecting that. "And now, time for District 7. Abigail Gould, with a score of… 8" I sink into my chair a bit as the 8 flashes next to the girls face. Where are all these amazing scores coming from? "Nathan Gould with a score of… 9"

"What the hell is this?!" Screams Autumn. "Where are all these amazing scores coming from?" She continues. No one responds, I would respond, but I have no answer to her question. The District 8 seal lights up the screen.

"Lillian Conner, with a score of… 7, and Hunter Lever, with a score of… 9" Well, he _is _a career after all. But the District 7 boy isn't a career and he also scored a 9. "District 9. Rylie Naples has scored a…" you can tell that Caesar has flash of disappointment while looking at the score on the paper. "3…" He says slowly. I guess not all the scores are good huh. "And Malik Stevens, with a score of… 5" A 3 and a 5? Those aren't great odds for District 9 this year. "District 10, we're finishing up." The small 14-year-old girl flashes onto the screen. "Iris Perricone, with a score of… 8" What? A 14-year-old scores an 8? What is this?! "And Andrew Stang, with a matching score of 8" Another 8… Wonderful. I probably should prepare myself for the big fat 2 I'm going to get. District 11 comes on, our allies. Makalya scores a 6… kinda pathetic, but then again, I might score that too. Tristan scores an 8. Finally we're on. I sit up straight and watch the screen anxiously. "Autumn Govern scoring a 7." I hear her sigh in relief, and now my turn. "And finally, Austin Pelikan, with a matching score of 7" A 7 flashes next to me and it soon fades away. I sit back. I'm disappointed but I probably couldn't of done any better. "This makes the average tribute score a 7.5, which is a fairly high score… We should be expecting some very interesting things from these guys." Great… so to top it all off, I'm below the average tribute score. Wonderful.

I directly head to my room not wanting to hear anything from Haymitch and Effie. It's been a long day, I just wanna lay in my bed and forget about the past events. Why do I care so much about training scores anyways? Odds are I'm going to die… so why does it matter? I throw myself onto the huge king-sized bed, and let sleep overcome me.

Her voice wakes me.

"Austin, get up, the scores aren't over yet." Autumn says to me as I sit up.

"Huh? What do you mean?" I ask… they've already broadcasted the tribute scores, what is she talking about.

"I mean that they're broadcasting our odds now." I still look at her confused.

"As in the odds we have a surviving Austin! You're so clueless…" she says as she walks out of my room. I quickly get up. How long have I been asleep for… not long I guess. I walk into the living room and see the big score board on the TV.

"Your odds aren't bad Austin." Says Haymitch as I get closer to the TV. The score board has a box for each tribute which includes the tribute's name, District, age, Training Score, and odds in winning the games. I look at the top of the list. Both of the tributes from 1 have the odds of 5-1 of winning, and the boy from 2 has the odds of 4-1 of winning. The girl from 2 has the odds of 6-1 of winning. I quickly look to the bottom of the list. I look at our allies first. Makayla's odds are of 35-1 of winning. Tristan's odds are of 14-1 of winning. Now my District, District 12. Autumn has the odds of 27-1 of winning and I was given the odds of 25-1 of winning.

"These odds represent better who's got a chance in winning than the Training Scores. Unlike the Training Scores, the Gamemakers take everything into account. That's your height, your weight, your alliance, the District you come from, and obviously, your Training Score." Haymitch tells us. I looks at the odds of the tributes that stuck out in my mind. The boy from 5 has the odds of 20-1 of winning. The girl from 6 also has the odds of 20-1 of winning. The girl from 7 has the odds of 22-1 and her brother has the odds of 15-1. The boy from 8 has the odds of 8-1. Then from District 10, the girl has the odds of 15-1 of winning, and the boy has the odds of 22-1. That boy had a high training score, yet he doesn't have great odds, probably because he doesn't have an alliance. All these odds are higher than mine though. It's like the Gamemakers are trying to guess how long you'll make it in the arena. It's all a game to them. I remember the 13-year-old girl from 9 that scored a 3. I wonder what odds she got. I'm surprised when I see them. She's got the odds of 50-1 of winning. Her District partner doesn't have great odds either. He's got 40-1 chances of coming out alive. This is sick.

"You shouldn't have woken me up for this" I say to Autumn as I leave back to my room. Even though, I am somewhat glad that I saw the odds of some of the tributes. This time, hopefully no one's going to wake me up!

**A/N: There we go! I'm finally done with this chapter! :D I saw some of you have voted on my poll so thanks a lot! :) But remember you can vote up to THREE choices, one of you voted for only 1 tribute, which is fine, but I thought people would like it better if I gave you three choices instead of just 1. Anyways, here's the list of the tributes with age, training score, and odds of winning. **

**Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

Male: Keaton Gold (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

Male: Logan Voss (18)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 4-1

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 29-1

Male: Darren Hacker (13)  
Training Score: 4  
Odds of winning: 35-1

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 7-1

Male: Dale Alderman (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Braydon Serre (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 21-1

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 20-1

Male: Evan Stein (13)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 30-1

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

Male: Nathan Gould (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Hunter Lever (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 8-1

**District 9:**

Female: Rylie Naples (13)  
Training Score: 3  
Odds of winning: 50-1

Male: Malik Stevens (13)  
Training Score: 5  
Odds of winning: 40-1

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 15-1

Male: Andrew Stang (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 35-1

Male: Tristan Ray (18)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 14-1

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Austin Pelikan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 25-1

**A/N: Okay so those are the odds and the training scores for every tribute! In case you forget them I'll post these at the end of the next few chapters. Once again, don't forget to vote on my poll. Just go on my profile and click on vote now and the poll will appear! :) Thanks for reading!**


	8. The Interviews

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back! :) The INTERVIEWS! And I'm pretty sure that the chapter after this is going to be the Games, or the chapter after that one! :) This story has gone by really quicly! :) We're already at chapter 8! :D I'm really excited about writing about the games guys. Once again, don't forget to vote on my poll. Just go on my profile and click on vote now and the poll will appear! :)**

**Chapter 8**

**The Interviews**

"_We're far from home, it's for the better  
What we dream, it's all that matters  
We're on our way, united_

_Turn the crowd up now, We'll never back down  
Shoot down a skyline, watch it in primetime  
Turn up the love now, listen up now, turn up the love_

_Who's gonna save the world tonight?  
Who's gonna bring you back to life?  
We're gonna make it, you and I  
We're gonna Save The World tonight"_

_Save the World – Swedish House of Mafia_

**Lillian Conner's POV District 8's Female Tribute**

"So, what am I going to be wearing for the interviews?" I ask my stylist nervously. Hopefully I'll get something decent. Our chariot costumes weren't bad, though. They were actually quite good.

"You'll see in a minute, I'm going to go get your dress, just stay here." My stylist responds quickly. Hopefully I've already got a few sponsors. This is my last chance to get sponsors though, so I have to really do my best. My training score wasn't amazing it was just average. My odds weren't amazing either, apparently I have the odds of 27-1 of winning, not great odds. It scares me a little how the Gamemakers give us odds, they're basically telling you that you're going to die pretty soon. I always knew that I never stood a chance, but when your odds flash on the television screen, it just makes the reality sink in deeper. My stylist's back with a short purple dress that has purple, pink and blue gems stuck to parts of the dress. It has a long purple fabric that's attached to the side of the dress that almost touches the floor.

"Wow…" I say a bit in shock, I wasn't expecting my stylist to give me such an impressive dress. He isn't a bad stylist, but I wasn't expecting him to design this.

"I knew you'd love it! It's beautiful isn't it?" he says excitedly as I put it on. The dress is slightly tight, but not as horrible as my mentor described it. My mentor, Cecilia, said that she was put in a dress so tight that she could barley breathe during her interview. She ended up winning so I guess it didn't really matter.

"Great now the interviews will begin in about 30 minutes, so how about we go meet your escort and your mentors?" He says to me as he leads me out of the styling room. I see Hunter leaving his styling room as well, he shoots another menacing glare at me. By this point, I'm used to them. You got used to them after the 30th one. I simply ignore him and follow my stylist. I get the point that he's a career and all, but why does he want to intimidate me so badly? I mean, he already knows he's far better than me and he's got much better odds than me, so why bother? You'd think that a career from District 8 would be relatively nice, but no, clearly not. He's just like the others, completely brainwashed.

"Here they are! Here they are!" Squeals the escort into our ears. "Tonight is a big night! Make sure you're both ready! This is the time to make a big impression on the audience!" She continues. Cecilia walks over to me and greets me with a smile, while Woof heads over to Hunter. These are our last two victors… Cecilia and Woof. Apart from them, there are only three other living victors in District 8. Decida, Rai and Leech. Two of them are in their 70's and Leech is in his 50's. Isn't this why Hunter volunteered or something? Because there aren't enough victors in 8? I really don't care. All I care about right now are my interviews. I don't really have too much of a strategy for the interviews. Cecilia told me to talk about clothes, because the Capitol loves anything related to fashion, so if I talk about clothes and textiles and how District 8 has an influence on the Capitol's fashion, then I should be fine. Hunter's probably going to come across as some bloodthirsty career that can't wait to get into the arena, at least that's what all careers come across as, usually. How does that not bore the Capitol?

"Alright! We're starting soon! We have to go go go!" squeals our escort once more.

**Darren Hacker's POV District 3's Male Tribute**

The Interviews are about to start. I'm slightly nervous, but not too much, this isn't going to determine whether I live or not. I understand the concept of sponsors, but I'm in an alliance, a pretty big alliance if I do say so myself, odds are they'll like at least one of us. That should be good enough to get us some sort of help during the games. Hopefully we won't need too much of it. That is if our strategy works of course. Our plan is to stick as a group during the initial bloodbath, not getting separated, then as a group we all try to get as many weapons and survival items as possible, we then flee the cornucopia as a group. No one will dare to attack us when we're moving in a pack of four. After that, we wait everyone out as they die during the games, and then once most of them are dead, there probably won't be many alliances left, which will make it easier for us to pick off the remaining tributes. It's true that we're not the strongest tributes, but considering that there won't be any alliances by that point, except for ours, we could easily pick off others. Four against one are good odds. Of course not always will we be able to kill a tribute quickly without any damage done to our alliance, that's were _my_ plan comes into action. I let the three of them get into a fight with the tribute while I simply run around for backup at a safe distance, and wait for the fight to be over. Hopefully, our alliance will then slowly decrease in numbers as we pick off more tributes. Then, the final three, same strategy, let my ally do the work, and in a moment when both tributes are vulnerable, I strike and win. A simple, easy plan that will hopefully work, because I don't have any other ideas.

Caesar's voice snaps me back to reality.

"Welcome audience, to the 72nd Hunger Game Interviews! In short moments they'll all be up here, this year's tributes!" Lots of roaring is heard from the crowd as Caesar moves over to his seat. Before he sits down, he faces the audience again.

"We begin with District 1! Please welcome our first tribute… Claire!" The blonde girl walks up the stage with a seducing smile. She greets Caesar with the same smile. Her short tight dress adapts to the curves of her body making her really provocative. She answers all of Caesar's questions in a very seducing manner as she occasionally winks at the audience. Typical District 1 girl approach, no surprises here. Soon enough, her time's up and the District 1 boy is now taking the stage. The boy plays off the funny and cool side with the audience, cracking jokes every once in a while which makes the audience chuckle quite a bit. He also shows his vicious side when Caesar asks him what his strategy for the games is. He describes various killing procedures he might use on some of the tributes. This gives me the shivers. I'm most likely one of his targets. I try to push the thought away from my mind while the District 2 girl takes the stage. To my surprise, she plays off the innocent side with Caesar, acting as if she weren't going to participate in a fight to the death. She tried to show Caesar her sweet side. This is a terrible approach. The girl is a _career_! To get sponsors shouldn't she want to show her viciousness and her determination for killing? I have no idea what this girl is thinking. Logan takes the stage now. As the crowd chants his name, I realize that I've learnt this guy's name as well. For a second I'm shocked because I was oblivious to most of the tribute's name's and personal details for the majority of the time. I'm too lost in my thoughts to notice Ariadna running up to the stage with a huge smile plastered on her face. Once I do notice her, she's leaving the stage and I'm being called on. Here goes nothing.

"Welcome Darren!" Caesar smiles warmly.

"So Darren tell me, what do you like most about the Capitol?" He asks me eagerly, and I say the first thing that comes to mind.

"The food." This gets me quite a few chuckles from the crowd and Caesar himself. What's so funny? The food is incredible here, much better than in three! Everything there is so polluted that the majority of the food isn't great.

"Funny boy" He says as he pats my leg.

"Now seriously Darren, let me ask you about the games you'll be in in less than 24 hours now." This makes my heart sink. He's right. In much less than 24 hours I'll be fighting for my life, praying to make it through one more day, one more hour, even one more minute.

"What do you envision the arena to be?" I really use my intellect to answer this question. Usually, when I'm asked to predict or estimate things, I really do try to do it as precisely as possible. I guess it's just a District 3 habit.

"Well, considering we have a new head Gamemaker, he's probably going to try to impress the audience to make himself stand out. So the arena can really be anything. I wouldn't be able to say precisely what theme or what style it will follow, but I can tell you that the arena will be packed with all sorts of surprises and traps. Something we won't expect." I respond eagerly. This is the first time that I actually think about what the arena is going to be. There's honestly no way of telling.

"Ah, well I see you really have thought it through. Tell me about back home Darren, what really motivates you to come back?" I think about this. To be honest, I really don't have a sob story or anything of the sort. Many tributes this year do though. There's the girl from 10 with her sick sister that might die if she doesn't get medical help from the Capitol. Then there are the siblings from 7, which have left their mother alone at home to cope with everything going on. I can't even compare. If I died, I wouldn't be that missed. My family would be sad of course, but they'd be fine without me. One mouth less to feed. If I want any chance of sponsors I need a sob story, and since I don't have one, I need to make something up. I say what first comes to mind.

"My mother, she's got a disease which will kill her soon. The Capitol medicine can help her, if I can manage to get it then she could live. Right now she's got a bit less than a year of life left." I just basically adapted to District 10 girl's story. There are a few aw's coming from the audience and Caesar looks at me in pity. I can't help but feeling sorry for them, I've literally just tricked an entire nation of people into believing that my mother has some deadly disease. This should get me some sponsors. Caesar prepares another question, but my time's up. He shakes my hand and introduces me once more to the Capitol audience, I smile warmly and quickly get off stage.

**Andrew Stang's POV District 10's Male Tribute**

The girl from District 4 takes the stage now. Many roars are heard, just like when the other careers went up. The girl plays off the mysterious and intelligent side and it works very well for her, the audience loves her just as much as the other careers. The boy from 4 comes on and does a typical career interview, but it seems awfully forced, something tells me that this isn't his really personality at all. He seems much too polite too. The girl from 5 comes on now, you can really see the difference in cheers when a career comes on and when a regular tribute comes on. The Capitol really annoys me sometimes. The idea of the Hunger Games is already horrible, but the way they host them and the routine they do in order to prepare for them is also terrible. Everything is done to add utmost excitement for the viewers, it's sick. When I look back up at the screen, the girl is returning, and Braydon is coming up. This is the kid that asked me for an alliance. I obviously denied, you can trust no one in a game like this, making close ties simply ends up being a burden. Braydon tries to imitate the confident and vicious career interview, he manages to have a decent interview, but nothing compared to the careers. The audience probably views him as a career wannabe. The girl from 6 tries to look confident because she scored an 8 in training. She tries to make herself the underdog, and it works very well. The Capitol loves this, a really smart act to play really. Her mentor must've probably given her this idea. Then it hits me. Her mentor is last year's victor, Elle. She was a smart girl that one, but she had a lot of luck too. But you have to have luck to win these games, even if you're a career. The boy from District 6 is running up to the stage now, with a nervous smile. You can tell that he's really nervous, he keeps on stuttering and his legs are slightly shaking. He isn't going to get many sponsors, his training score was mediocre and he isn't a memorable tribute. A bloodbath. The pair from 7 both play the sob story act were they both are really sad that one of them if not both of them are going to die, the boy keeps on telling Caesar that he's going to do anything to make sure his sister wins the games. Then the girl from 8 comes on, she talks about fashion and about how District 8 is so important to the Capitol's fashion. She also talks about her dress and how the materials on it are directly imported from District 8. The Capitol love anything related to fashion, and when a tribute talks about something they're passionate about, they love it. Many roars and cheers are heard form the crowd as she leaves the stage. The boy from 8 plays off the career interview as well. He does a much better job than Braydon. Probably because he _is _a career, the audience loves him. They love careers that come from outline Districts, such as him. The pair from 9 both try to come across as innocent children, which in their case works against them. Everyone views them as bloodbath deaths and pity them. And you definitely don't get sponsor when people pity you and know you're going to die. People only sponsor careers, underdogs and big alliances. Hopefully I can fall under the underdog section. Because I need sponsors since I'm going in there alone.

Iris is returning from her interview when I'm snapped back to reality by my escort. How did Iris do? She has a smile plastered on her face as she leaves the stage, leaving me to guess that she probably did very well. My name is being called as I walk up onto the stage with a huge grin. I need to try and look confident. I need to be an underdog. I scored an 8, which is a very good score for someone in District 10. Caesar stands up to shake my hand and I confidently smile at him. For all I know, Caesar could be a sponsor himself. I sit down in the very comfortable chair.

"You got a very high score during training, an 8" says Caesar with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, I did" I say as I look over to the audience with confidence. I see people cheering and smiling my direction, this is going well.

"Now that you know every tribute's skill, and your own in comparison to theirs, do you have a strategy for the games?"

"Yeah, I do. Firstly, I haven't allied with anyone. In a game like the Hunger Games, no one can be trusted. There can only be one winner. For the games themselves, you'll just have to wait and see." I say with a mysterious smile. I was about to explain my strategy, but with the other tributes listening, I can't afford to let people know my strategy. But now that I think about it, I don't really have one. All I've focused on so far was not trusting anyone and observing the others' skills. Oh well, I'll figure something out tonight with Felix, my mentor.

"Aha, so you don't trust _anyone_ at all?"

"Nope, everyone here wants to go home as much as I do, everyone here could take my life without much thought. Better not to make close bonds, they're simply a burden later on."

"I see, and have you been observing the other tributes?"

"Oh yes of course, I've made sure that I forget none of them." I say trying to sound smart, I could come across as intelligent and strong.

"And what do you think of them then? Since you haven't made any close ties with anyone, do you have any opinions on this year's group of tributes?" The question surprises me at first, and it takes me a while to process what the man just asked. When I open my mouth to answer, the words come out without thought.

"They're a bunch of idiots. The careers are all just vicious and bloodthirsty. All they care about is fame and fortune. Too bad they're all going to die huh? The pair from 3 are weaklings, I could take them both in a second. The boy from 5 seems somewhat stupid, and his District partner is nothing of interest. The girl from 6 thinks she's all mighty and strong, but she's not, and the boy from 6 is a bit of an idiot. The pair from 7 are just attention seekers that are trying to make up this sob story to make everyone love them, pretty pathetic if you ask me. The girl from 8 is saying a bunch of stuff that she doesn't really care about to impress everyone in the audience, no interest in her whatsoever. The boy from 8 is basically a career wannabe, not much more to be said. And the pair from 9 are both going to die in the bloodbath. They were dead the second they're names were called out during the reaping. Iris, my District partner, is like the pair from 7, she's making up this whole story about her sister being sick so she can get all the attention from the crowd. Too bad she's never coming back to District 10 huh? Then there's the group of outcasts. That's the tributes from 11 and 12. Not much can be said about them, they're probably going to slowly die during the games for stupid reasons, like dehydration or hunger. They'll all slowly die one by one. And that about sums up this year's tributes. Or shall I say, this year's idiots…" I say all this with a huge grin on my face. The audience is silent. It takes me a while to realize what I've just been saying for the past minute. Caesar looks at me slightly shocked. My buzzer going off interrupts the awkward silence. As I leave the stage, dirty looks from everyone are being shot at me.

"You're dead meat kid." I hear a voice from behind me say. It comes from the boy from 1.

"A career _wannabe?_ I just can't wait until the arena, when I can get my hands on you and slowly but painfully kill you. I'm going to see your little body slowly going still as I suck the life away from you." This comes from the District 8 boy. The girl from 11 is on stage now trying to lighten up the mood by making a few jokes. I just head straight over to where my mentors and escort are standing.

"Are you crazy!? Have you gone mad?! What did you think you were doing up there insulting _every single _tribute?!" My escort screams into my ear.

"Like the career from 1 said, you are dead meat." This time it comes from Iris.

"I'm no less dead meat than you are Iris!" I scream at hear as I head straight for the elevator. I'm not here to make friends, but I should've never done that. Now every single tribute hates me. All I wanted was to stick out, to be the underdog. Guess I'm a dead underdog now. As the elevator reaches the 10th floor, all I can think about are the games that will start tomorrow. In less than 24 hours, I could be lying dead on the ground, my body lifeless body still, just like the career from 8 described. I sprint for my room and throw myself on my bed dreading the games that would start tomorrow, knowing that every second that passes, I'm one second closer to the hell of my life, the Hunger Games.

**A/N: Finally! This chapter is over, I'm sorry I didn't do the rest of the interviews, I originally planned to continue, but I thought it would be more emotional to finish on that depressing note. So yeah, now everyone hates Andrew Stang, the boy from District 10. Guys I really need more reviews. Like this isn't even funny I seriously need more reviews cuz I only have four so far all from the same person :/ So please review cuz I feel like I'm writing to myself at the moment. Is anyone even reading this? Aha, I know some of you voted on my poll, thanks so much, so if you have done so already please go vote on my poll. All you have to do is go to my profile and click on vote now at the top of the page and the poll will appear. You can vote up to three choices so make sure you don't only vote for one. I will be deleting the choices as the games progress. Thanks for reading and I leave you with the list of tributes :D**

**Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

Male: Keaton Gold (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

Male: Logan Voss (18)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 4-1

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 29-1

Male: Darren Hacker (13)  
Training Score: 4  
Odds of winning: 35-1

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 7-1

Male: Dale Alderman (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Braydon Serre (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 21-1

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 20-1

Male: Evan Stein (13)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 30-1

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

Male: Nathan Gould (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Hunter Lever (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 8-1

**District 9:**

Female: Rylie Naples (13)  
Training Score: 3  
Odds of winning: 50-1

Male: Malik Stevens (13)  
Training Score: 5  
Odds of winning: 40-1

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 15-1

Male: Andrew Stang (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 35-1

Male: Tristan Ray (18)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 14-1

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Austin Pelikan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 25-1


	9. Let the Games Begin: The Bloodbath

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back! This is probably the most exciting chapter for me to write in the ENTIRE story. I've been looking forward to writing this for like months! It's not even funny how much I've tried to rush the story so I could get to write this. Ahhh but finally… I'm going to have soo much fun writing! Well, by the time you're reading this it will already be written, but oh well. Enjoy! **

**Chapter 9**

**Let the Games Begin: The Bloodbath**

_"And in a burst of light that blinded every angel  
__As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars  
__You felt the gravity of tempered grace  
__Falling into empty space  
__No one there to catch you in their arms__  
_

_Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?  
__You build up hope, but failure's all you've known  
__Remember all the sadness and frustration  
__And let it go. Let it go"__  
_

_Iridescent – Linkin Park_

* * *

**_Day 1_**

**Makayla Zideck's POV District 11's Female Tribute**

Our mentors escort us towards the hovercraft. We'll be riding the hovercraft over to the arena. There'll be no windows except for the pilot's cabin. That's because the arena but me kept a secret. We will then be sent underground to our launch rooms where we will meet our stylists. They will then give us our clothes for the arena and send us into our glass tubes, which will then rise up into the arena. This is what our mentors have explained to us. As I say goodbye to my mentor and head off towards the hovercraft, I wonder if the careers feel as nervous as I do right now. I know they've trained, but surely they must feel somewhat scared right? They might've trained, but they have to take into account that there are 6 other careers that have trained as much if not more. Do they really think that they can beat each other? I honestly have no idea.

When I enter the hovercraft I see that about half of the tributes have arrived. I thought there would be an arranged sitting plan where you'd sit next to your District partner, but clearly not. All the tributes are sitting in random places, mostly with their allies. I try to find Tristan but I think he's still talking with his mentor. Austin and Autumn haven't arrived yet, so I just sit next to the District 3 girl, which is sitting alone. I can see her legs slightly shaking. She's _really _nervous, and she isn't hiding it. The pair from 4 enter and sit next to each other opposite from me and the 3 girl. Tristan finally walks in right behind the boy from 9. He sits down next to me and the boy from 9 finds a space next to the boy from 3, one of his allies I think. Nobody dares to speak, not even the careers. I guess they are nervous after all. Soon enough, the remaining tributes enter. The last tribute is the girl from 10, which has only one seat left. She has to sit in between two huge intimidating careers. The boy from 2, and the boy from 4. The boy from 4 looks at her in a different manner than the rest of the careers, as if he knew her. He must just be polite or something.

I feel the hovercraft rising and a group of medics enter. They're all wearing white coats and they all have some sort of needle in their arms. They head over to the first tribute on the end of the line. The medic inserts some sort of tracker, she then moves on to the next tribute. A different medic injects trackers to the tributes sitting on the row in opposite from us. I hear the girl from District 3 flinch as the tracker enters her arm. As I hold my arm out, I feel a stabbing pain, and then a tiny metal ball enter through a whole in my skin. A light flashes from under my skin, which really freaks me out. I dismiss it from my mind and focus on the games that will be starting soon. My best strategy for the Cornucopia is to get something from the outskirts of it quickly and find Tristan, Austin or Autumn as fast as possible. The games start at 8:30am. It's currently 7:58am. In an hour, I could be dead, these could literally be the last minutes of my life. Right here on some hovercraft in the middle of nowhere. And it really sucks that I've been living the last few days of my life with so much stress. I haven't been able to relax or have a good time. I've just been stressed and nervous about everything going on, not even enjoying what are possibly the last few days of my life. A part of me can't even believe that my current situation is so bad. I've always been so afraid of the games, and now that they're actually happening I just don't feel like they're real. Like it's all too bad to actually be happening. But this is real, and I will die in the next few weeks. It's almost inevitable.

The hovercraft lands smoothly and we're not allowed to go outside so we have to exit the hovercraft through and elevator which sends us directly underground. Once we're there, two Peacekeepers escort each tribute to their launch rooms. Every launch room has a name on it, like D3M, which I'm guessing, stands for District 3 Male. We pass a few rooms that say, D4F, D8F and D5M. They're in complete random order. Once we reach the room that says D11F, the door automatically opens and I enter. I find my stylist standing there, expecting me to come in. When I do, she gives me a caring smile as she heads over to where the arena wear has been laid out. All she gives me are hiking boots, a jacket and some quick dry pants.

"You should be expecting average temperature, nothing too warm or too cold. The arena might be a bit mountainous, or you might have to walk for long distances, or climb up things. There might be rain, or a lake, but the arena shouldn't be anything like a desert or a snowy mountain." I'm relieved when she says this because I come from District 11, the agricultural District, so we're definitely not used to weather extremes, it does sometimes get very hot though. This also gives me a hope that there's going to be some sort of vegetation in the arena which could be my prime source of food since I know all about plants coming from 11. As I tie my hiking boots, my mentor wishes me luck. Just then, a voice orders me to enter the glass tube, which is located to my left. I enter; I see the glass door close right in front of me. My mentor gives me a confident nod and my tube shoots up, headed off into the unknown, I prepare myself. The arena could still be anything imaginable, despite the fact that we've been given regular arena wear, the Gamemakers can still put anything in there, even if it goes against all laws of nature.

Light engulfs me as I rise above ground. When I regain my vision, I see a grass plain extended before my eyes, and the Cornucopia reflecting the sun's light, which shines into my eyes. Weapons are spilling from every corner of the Cornucopia. I look around me; I see a few trees but not many. The trees aren't forest trees, and their fairly spread out, they're not close to each other, just close enough to give a person walking through them some shade. As I flicker my eyes around, a flash of bright red catches my eye. I squint as the object comes into vision. Swings. As in, swings that you swing in when you were a little kid at the school playground. Then I see a slide next to the swings and a path extending in between both of them. I then see a bench, on the other side. The arena is a park? I look in the distance now, to see if the arena is simply just a park that goes on forever. I'm shocked by what I see. In the distance, I can see skyscrapers and buildings of all sorts. As the buildings come more into focus, I see that the windows are shattered and vines are growing in from every corner. Some buildings don't look stable at all, as if they were on the verge of collapsing. One skyscraper, far off in the distance, has fallen to the side and crashed into another skyscraper. Vines hang down from it, almost touching the ground. The arena is an abandoned city.

* * *

**Rylie Naples' POV District 9's Female Tribute**

We have one minute to stand on our pedal stones and observe everything. A minute that rushed by, when I checked the clock in front of the cornucopia, it indicated that there were 40 more seconds until the games began. I had spent 20 seconds admiring the arena, which to be honest, was amazing. Probably one of the most incredible arenas I've ever seen. An abandoned city was probably the most creative arena in the history of the games. Of course you can't really judge creativity, but it definitely is a surprise.

I look around for my allies. I'm probably on the worst pedal stone that I could've possibly been on. I'm in between the pair from District 2. The girl is to my left, and the boy is to my right. That's not all, but three tributes to my left is the girl from 4. It's like I'm surrounded by careers. My closest ally is Darren, which is located four tributes to my right. He's in between the boy from 10, and the girl from 8. I look around for the rest of my allies. Malik is very far off, I'm guessing 8 or 9 tributes to my left. He's in between the girl from 6 and the boy from 11. I then look for Evan; I find him standing next to the boy from 5 and the girl from 12. It does seem quite random, but it's a bit odd that I've been put in between _two _careers. Are they just trying to get rid of me since I got the lowest training score? I find myself shaking at the thought.

25 seconds until the games begin. The seconds count down incredibly fast, I take out my token to calm myself down a little because if I continue to shake like I'm shaking right now, I might as well fall of the pedal stone and blow up. 15 seconds. I hold my token, a small wooden ball given to me by my grandma, tightly around my palm.

10…

9…

8…

7…

6….

I can't do this, I can't. I begin to shake again, almost violently. I get a glimpse of the clock, four seconds. I try to regain composure, but something slips out of my hand. When I look down at what is falling, I see the small wooden ball touching the ground next to the pedal stone. The ground beneath me explodes. I see a quick flash of red and white, and then nothing.

* * *

**Logan Voss' POV District 2's Male Tribute**

The force of the blast almost throws me off my pedal stone, but I manage to keep myself on it. The ground has erupted. Pieces of land have flown in all directions. What even happened? I think the District 9 girl was standing on that pedal stone. Did she commit suicide? Whoever that was is dead. I look around and see everyone has already left their pedal stones and is running around the cornucopia. What?! I jump off my pedal stone.

"Logan! Melissa!" a voice calls out. I look over to Melissa, which name's also been called out. She must've gotten distracted by the explosion too. Sophia was the one that was calling us.

"C'mon! Get over here the tributes are already fleeing the cornucopia!" How did everyone already get to the Cornucopia? Last time I looked at the Cornucopia's clock, there were 4 seconds on it. The girl must've blown up soon before the start of the games. I guess only the tributes that were close to the girl were distracted by it, many tributes are already fleeing the Cornucopia with backpacks and weapons. I sprint over to the center of the Cornucopia; no cannons have gone off, indicating that there haven't been any deaths yet, apart from the stupid girl that set her landmine off. I see a fight brake out from the corner of my eye. The boy from 5 tackled the boy from 6 to the ground. I reach the Cornucopia a bit after Melissa does. She quickly grabs an axe and lunges herself at a boy that I can't recognize. I hear a cannon go off quickly followed by another one. Melissa stands over the boy she previously launched herself at. I enter the Cornucopia frantically looking for a sword. Hunter joins me, also looking for a sword. I grab one off the wall of the Cornucopia, it isn't as long as I'd like it to be, but it should do for now. I look around to see if I can find any other tributes that haven't fled the Cornucopia yet. There aren't many. I see the tributes from 11 and 12 quickly running away, they're much too far for me to reach them. I look over to my left and I see Keaton beating the boy from 5 to death with a mace. I think that was the boy I saw get into a fight earlier. I look over to where I saw him fight, and find a lifeless body lying there. I guess he beat his opponent and came here to look for another fight, but found the wrong opponent. I continue to look around and find a boy grabbing a spear from the ground, he looks around to make sure if anyone is trying to attack him. I begin to charge towards him, but much before I reach him, a knife comes whizzing past me and into the boy's chest. He falls to the ground and a cannon shot soon follows. I look back to see who just stole my kill. Sophia. I would shout at her but I can't be bothered, I need to find more tributes. I see the boy from 10 lurking behind the Cornucopia. He's mine. He sees me coming for him, he turns around and crashes into Claire. They both get into a fight. I'm not going to try and help Claire, I want to kill someone by myself not with the help of another tribute. I'd much rather have no kills than have people help me get a lot of them. I turn around and continue searching for any tributes that still haven't fled the Cornucopia.

* * *

**Mai Kilson's POV District 6's Female Tribute**

I almost mistook the explosion for the gong, but when the actual gong went off three seconds afterwards, it made me realize that I was very close to blowing up to bits. It did take me a bit by surprise so I look around to see if anyone's got a head start on me, but by the looks of it no one really does. The mysterious explosion has also distracted everyone else, some tributes are still on their pedal stones, and unaware the gong has already gone off. My eyes lock on a backpack about 20 meters from where I am standing. I sprint towards it, but a figure soon takes it way before I could even get there. I recognize the girl as she sprints off, it was the girl from 10. I look around frantically for another backpack and find one a bit closer to the Cornucopia. I sprint towards it and manage to grab it this time, a pair of hands reaches down to snatch it away from me, expecting to get thrown to the ground, I grip the backpack strongly, and instead, the other tribute tumbles to the ground as he tries to snatch the backpack off my grip. I realize that it was the boy from 3. I kick him in the face so he'll let go of my backpack, and he does. I sprint off to Ariadna, which is standing around the outskirts of the Cornucopia. I see Silvia join her first. It looks like Silvia also managed to grab a backpack. I soon realize that neither Silvia nor I have weapons. We need a weapon. I throw my backpack at Silvia and tell her that I'll be right back; my eyes find a dagger that lies on top of one of the black boxes. I look around before heading towards it; it's mayhem out here, complete chaos. Everyone is running around frantically grabbing as many supplies as possible. I see a pair of tributes fight, and the careers begin to scatter across the Cornucopia looking for more tributes. I need to get out of here. I grab the dagger and leave, running back to the group of girls. I see Lillian arrive with two simple knives in her hands. I don't hesitate to grab my backpack and we all quickly flee the area and leave the horrors of the Cornucopia behind.

* * *

**Claire Cludiant's POV District 1's Female Tribute**

What a joke of a bloodbath! Honestly, all because of the stupid girl that blew up, the other tributes managed to get away. As I exit the Cornucopia, I run around the Cornucopia and almost immediately, I crash into a boy, he tries to get away but I charge towards him and tackle him to the ground. I pin him down and I'm about to stab him, but he throws me off him and tackles me back to the ground. This time, he's pinned me down. I let out a cackle as he tries to stab me, but I take his knife and cut his hand. I throw him onto the wall of the Cornucopia and put my arm over his neck to make sure he doesn't escape. I realize who the boy is and begin my taunt. I smile at the thought of getting to kill him, the boy from 10.

"Where are your friends now? Oh wait that's right, you don't have any. So much for not trusting others huh? Oh and what was that you said about me during your interview? That I'm a brainless career? That I just look for fame?" He spits on me before I can finish. I let out another loud cackle and shoot a menacing glare at him. In an act of rage, I slit his throat. Blood spills everywhere and I see the boy's body fall to the ground as he desperately tries to breathe but ends up choking on his own blood. I wanted to make it a little more interesting, but oh well doesn't matter. I head back to the Cornucopia and a cannon shot is heard, confirming my kill. An immediate grin plasters my face as the cannon sound fades in the distance.

"You go the District 10 boy?" asks Hunter anxiously, I smirk and reply.

"Yeah I did" and it actually felt good killing that annoying brat.

"Dammit I wanted him!"

"Have you even gotten a kill?" I begin to taunt. He shoots me a menacing glare.

"Logan and Hunter, well I guess you two need to get yourselves some kills soon" I say.

"Yeah, we've all gotten kills" Agrees Melissa. I smile at her as I go over everyone who's had a kill. I realize something, but Keaton mentions it before.

"Guys where's Dale?" He asks bluntly. Everyone seems to realize that the boy is nowhere to be found.

"I saw him earlier, just before I killed the District 3 boy. He had a spear in his hand." Remarks Sophia.

"Maybe he went off to hunt down some tribute." Suggests Logan.

"Yeah but wouldn't the tribute be dead by now? Or he would've at least given up? He'd surely be back by now if that was the case." I say.

"Good point, well we'll just have to do without him, I guess we should assume that he betrayed us and if we ever find him again, then we kill him." This comes from Hunter.

"Sure, it's not like we needed him anyway." Says Melissa dismissingly.

"Alright well we better hunt down some tributes while they're still close to the area, Sophia and Mel, you two stay here and guard the Cornucopia." Says Logan as he directs us towards the gates of the park. 6 deaths, this pretty much was a failed bloodbath.

* * *

**Ariadna Meyer's POV District 3's Female Tribute**

I don't dare to grab anything from the center or the outskirts of the Cornucopia, it's too risky. I just grab the supplies that were close to my pedal stone. I saw Silvia and Mai grab backpacks, and Lillian grabbed two knives. Mai throws her backpack over to Silvia, Mai runs back to the chaos of the Cornucopia. Is she trying to get herself killed? She grabs a long dagger, which lays on one of the black crates, she quickly sprints back to us and we quickly exit the area. All I found close to my pedal stone were two loaves of bread and a slingshot. I guess it serves as some sort of weapon. It won't be able to kill anyone with it, but it can buy me some time during a fight. Once we're almost out of the park, I take one last look back, some trees cover my sight, but I can make out what's happening. I see Darren, my District partner, grab a spear; I hope he'll be okay. I see a few lifeless bodies lying on the ground around. I've heard 3 cannons so far, without including the girl that blew up.

"Ariadna! What are you doing?! Lets go!" screams Mai. I do as she says and follow them out of the park. I hear another cannon as we go through the gate of the park. The gates of the park have vines wrapped around them and look like they'd brake down any minute. As walk on what looks like one of the city's main street, I take some time to observe the buildings. It looks like regular office buildings, which have been abandoned for years. Another cannon is heard and this makes up pick up the pace a little. The arena seems huge, there are so many places to hide, if the careers want to hunt us down, they'd have to look in every floor of every building. To my left, is a residential area, it's a basic neighborhood, except it looks like it's been attacked by zombies or something. There are holes on the roof and trees growing inside the houses. We figured that most tributes would probably go to the residential area since it's closer to a source of water, which is the river the passes right behind the residential area. Also it will probably take a long time for someone to walk down all the floors of a building just to get to the street. So I guess most tributes are going to want to camp out near the residential area, instead, we decide to go to one of the buildings on the outskirts of the arena.

* * *

**Abigail Gould's POV District 7's Female Tribute**

The last rays of sun leave the arena, and we're left with the moonlight that shines on us almost like a spotlight. The anthem will play soon and we'll find out who's been brutally murdered. How exciting. We're camping out in an apartment of a huge apartment complex. There are no beds, but there's some furniture, which is relatively comfortable. The apartment is broken down; there are holes in the walls and a huge hole in the ceiling, which allows us to see the apartment above us. All the windows have been shattered and a nice breeze blows into the room every once in a while. There was broken glass all over the floor, but we threw it all out to make sure we wouldn't hurt ourselves. During the bloodbath, we were able to grab quite a few supplies. I grabbed a very well equipped backpack, and so did Nathan. Nathan also found an axe. We were also sponsored with a small saw, which Nathan gave to me so I could have a weapon.

The anthem begins to play and Nathan calls me over to see the dead faces illuminate the sky. The first tribute is the boy from 3, indicating that all tributes from Districts 1-2 are alive, which was expected since they are _careers_ after all. The next face to illuminate the sky is the boy from 5, also indicating that the careers from District 4 are alive. The District 6 boy's face also lights up the sky. I think his name was Evan. I'm not sure why I know that. The girl from District 9 is illuminated into the night sky, I think she was the one that got blown up by the landmine. Her District partner's face is also up there. What a bad year for District 9, but then again, you couldn't expect two thirteen year olds to do much. The arrogant boy from District 10 comes up. Oh well, I can't say I feel bad the boy had it coming. What was he thinking when he insulted everyone during his interview? It was a stupid, and an arrogant thing to do. No wonder he died, he pretty much made enemies with every tribute. The boy's face is engulfed by the night sky and the anthem ends. A whole alliance and two other tributes without alliances have already died on the first day. That makes a total of 6 deaths and 18 living tributes.

"I'll take first watch." Says Nathan quietly. I quickly head over to the couch and lie down, my mind almost automatically wonders about the dead tributes. Even though I didn't know any of them personally, there was a pang of guilt inside me for each face that lit up the sky tonight, not so much for the boy from 10, but he still had a life back at home. Those tributes had families, friends, dreams, hopes, and everything was taken away from them just like that. I feel like I've been so naïve about the Hunger Games in the past. You never really know the true horror of the games until you actually participate in them. It scares me that I'm probably going to face the same fate as those who died tonight. I entered the games quite confident, a few hours in the games has definitely changed that. It takes a long time for sleep to arrive, but once it does, I don't reject it.

* * *

**Memory Clark's POV District 5 Female Mentor**

Not many mentors are still in the control room. Most of them have either gone out celebrating, or in the District 9 Mentors' case, they're not coming back to the control room, as both of their tributes are dead. It hurts when your tribute dies, but I don't think I've ever mentored tributes that both died on the first day. After all I've only been a mentor for 9 years but I've been told that it has happened in the past for District 5. I am District 5's latest victor, and it's probably going to stay like that for one more year. Not that I don't have hope in Silvia, but she's got no sponsors, and the odds aren't in her favor either. She's a smart girl, I know she can make it far in these games, but winning doesn't seem too realistic. I actually thought Braydon had a better chance of winning than her, but he died during the bloodbath, and I can't say it wasn't his fault. I stroll around the control room where only a few mentors remain. The only mentors that remain in the control room either have one tribute in the games, or simply have tributes from poor Districts like 11 and 12. I look back over at my control screen, the screen marked under "D5M" remains black, and the other screen marked under "D5F" shows an image of Silvia lying down on a mattress that she recently found in the apartment that her alliance is staying in. I walk over to the District 6 Female mentor, and last year's victor, Elle. We get along quite well.

"I didn't think mentoring would be this stressing." She says to me tiredly. I watch her screen, we can see Mai sitting down on a couch, she's on night watch.

"Well, it's always hard the first year, but you'll get used to it." I say to her as the District 7 mentors walk in. The control screens are organized by District numbers. The room is circular, and therefore the control stations go around in a circle, there is a gap in between District 1, the first control station, and District 12, the last control station, which is where the entrance to the room is. Since female tribute screens are placed first, I sit in between the District 4 Male Mentor, Finnick, and Blaise, the District 5 Male Mentor. Elle, sits in between Blaise, and the new mentor Heleus. This year there are two new District 6 mentors. Well, Heleus isn't new, he used to mentor, but he eventually got replaced by a new victor, but the victor who replaced him got addicted to morphing and he started becoming slightly weird. They have to have sane mentors and therefore Heleus replaced him. This isn't the first time something like this happened, there was an insane girl from District 4 which won the 70th Hunger Games, she wasn't allowed to mentor because of her insanity, she wasn't really insane, but somewhat traumatized from her games. I think her name was Annie or something. Finnick keeps on talking about her to the District 4 Female Mentor.

I keep strolling around the control room looking at the other tribute's screens. There isn't anything interesting going on most tributes are resting. The pair from 7 are resting in some apartment complex in the center of the city. The girl from 8 is with Silvia's alliance, and the boy is with the careers at the Cornucopia. I skip District 9, and directly look at the District 10 girl's screen. She's with the career from 4 in some sort of office. The boy is taking night watch. The District 11 and 12 screens show the tributes sleeping in some house in the residential area, the District 12 boy is taking night watch. I don't bother going to the career control stations. I should take a break because I'm really tired and I'm beginning to doze off. I take one last look at the Death List; the list documents all the dead tributes and some statistics. It is updated every time a tribute dies. It gives you statistics like the Time in the Games, which is how long the tribute has lived for since the start of the games. Of course today was the first day and all the deaths are bloodbath deaths, which means that all the times documented don't go any higher than three minutes because that's how long the bloodbath lasted, three minutes and five seconds to be exact. I walk back over to my control station, and take one last look at Silvia sleeping. The first day of the games always sucks.

* * *

**A/N: Okay! So that was the longest chapter I've written so far. And that's including all the other stories I've written :P I think that during the games the chapters are going to average out to have 2500-3500 words. Things will get more descriptive and I'll add much more detail to the chapters. Hope you liked this one, don't forget to vote on my poll I need more votes, REVIEW please review I want to hear what you guys have to say. I've made lists of the dead and living tributes. For the dead tributes, I have this thing that says "Time in the Games" which I've already explained but I'll do it again anyways. It means it's telling you how long this tribute has lasted in the games, as the name clearly indicates. So it's basically like a huge digital clock, or like a huge "date" if you like. It marks days, hours, minutes, and seconds like so: (days/hours/minutes/seconds) so if a tribute has lived for 3 days, 17 hours, 33 minutes, and 28 seconds, it would look like this: 03:17:33:28 aaand yeah :) Once again please review and vote on my poll! :)**

**Dead Tributes:**

**24****th**** Place: **Rylie Naples (District 9 Female)  
Killed by: Landmine  
Place: Pedal stone  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:00:00

**23****rd**** Place: **Malik Stevens (District 9 Male)  
Killed by: Melissa Hemmis (District 2 Female)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:00:56

**22****nd**** Place: **Evan Stein (District 6 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Braydon Serre (District 5 Male)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:01:03

**21****st**** Place: **Braydon Serre (District 5 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Keaton Lentz (District 1 Male)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:01:43

**20****th**** Place: **Darren Hacker (District 3 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Sophia Press (District 4 Female)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:02:01

**19****th**** Place: **Andrew Stang (District 10 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Claire Cludiant (District 1 Female)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:03:05

**Living Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

Male: Keaton Gold (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

Male: Logan Voss (18)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 4-1

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 29-1

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 7-1

Male: Dale Alderman (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 20-1

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

Male: Nathan Gould (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Hunter Lever (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 8-1

**District 9:**

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 35-1

Male: Tristan Ray (18)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 14-1

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Austin Pelikan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 25-1


	10. Greed

**A/N: Hey guys I'm back :) sorry for the delay, I've been busy with school, and exam week is also coming up so I gotta study :P On the positivie side tho, I've been working really hard and it's been paying off, I just got my math test back today and it was my best one so far :D So hopefully I'll continue to get good grades :) I know it's been like a month since I've last updated and I want to apologize, I got two new reviews over the time being and that really motivated me to write :) So here it is, enjoy. Don't forget to vote on my poll btw.**

**Alliances:**

The Careers:  
Claire and Keaton (District 1 Tributes)  
Melissa and Logan (District 2 Tributes)  
Sophia (District 4 Female)  
Hunter (District 8 Male)

The Outcasts:  
Makayla and Tristan (District 11 Tributes)  
Autumn and Austin (District 12 Tributes)

The Girls:  
Ariadna (District 3 Female)  
Silvia (District 5 Female)  
Mai (District 6 Female)  
Lillian (District 8 Female)

The Siblings:  
Abigail and Nathan (District 7 Tributes)

The Awkward Duo:  
Dale (District 4 Male)  
Iris (District 10 Female)

**Chapter 10:**

**Greed**

"You had to have it all,  
Well have you had enough?  
You greedy little bastard,  
You will get what you deserve.  
When all is said and done,  
I will be the one to leave you in the misery and hate what you've become.

Intoxicated eyes, no longer live that life.  
You should have learned by now, I'll burn this whole world down.  
I need some peace of mind, no fear of what's behind.  
You think you've won this fight, you've only lost your mind."

**Had Enough - Breaking Benjamin**

**_Day 2_**

* * *

**Lillian Conner's POV District 8's Female Tribute**

The knife came thrashing down, piercing my heart. My eyes fling open and bring me back to reality. Just a bad dream, I sigh in relief, I'm quick to realize where I am. The Hunger Games. In this arena, reality itself is a bad dream. I stroll over to the massive whole in the apartment's wall, where I can sit down and observe the abandoned city. It makes me wonder how long the Gamemakers would've taken to make this. They must've had thousands of Capitol machines working on every inch of the city, making sure it had to be perfect for this year's games. After all, that's all they care about, the games, watching 23 children get slaughtered. It brings me to wonder about my District partner, and how he's doing. I hate him, there's no doubt about it, he's a career after all. But if I would want anyone to win, apart from myself, it would be him. Yes, despite the fact that he's a horrible person, he'd bring a year's worth of food for my family, and I'd rather have that than some random tribute, I don't even know, win. Even if they deserve to win more than Hunter does.

I hear a loud yawn from behind me and I quickly turn around, Mai has just woken up. The others are quick to wake after that.

"So what now?" asks Ariadna "We've got enough supplies for at least 1 week, and we've got shelter, what's next? Do we hunt for tributes?"

"No I don't think we should look for tributes, it's too early for that, most of them are still in big alliances, and if we encounter the careers we'll have a problem." Responds Mai critically. She's right, we're probably the weakest alliance right now, maybe apart from the District 11 and 12 tributes, and the girl from 10, does she even have an alliance? I think I saw the boy from 4 running away with her.

"Yeah I agree with Mai, we should probably stay here, or look for supplies in the outskirts of the city, there probably won't be many tributes there." I suggest.

"Yeah, we should try to avoid tributes, but I don't think they'll be many supplies in the outskirts of the city, we'll find food inside the city. I just don't know in what state it'll be in…" This comes from Silvia.

"Good point, but the Gamemakers would surely have some kind of food supply somewhere for tributes to find, right? They always do in the games. Maybe we could find an abandoned supermarket or something like that." I suggest once again.

"Yeah, that'd be good, we probably shouldn't stay in the same place too long. Anyways, the Gamemakers will force us out of here eventually." Agrees Mai. And with that, we all got up and started packing our supplies. From the corner of my eye, I notice movement outside. I quickly look, and to my surprise I find the careers strolling by the main street, looking up at the buildings for any tributes they could spot. They could look right through the whole in the wall and right at me, I quickly move out of the way and into a corner of the apartment, where they wouldn't be able to see me from any angle.

"What are you doing?" asks Ariadna in a confused manner.

"The careers, they're right outside, on the main street."

Panic arose for the three other girls. Ariadna's eyes widen in fear and the other two look nervous and confused. They all risk a peek through the hole in the ceiling to look, and they all see the six menacing tributes strolling down the main street as if it was just another casual day in their lives.

"What do we do?" asks Ariadna in fear.

"It would be smart to get out of here as soon as possible, there's only one way out, and that's through the stairs in the interior. If the careers decide to come inside the building and we tried to escape while they're here, we'd eventually meet, and we're in no condition to fight them. We're outnumbered, in terms of tributes _and_ weapons. The smartest thing to do would be to leave now in hope that they won't decide to come up the building while we're leaving, if we wait, then we'll be stuck here until they decide to move on." Replies Mai. Once again, she's got the situation well thought out.

"Yeah but why would they go in this building. It's not like they're going through _every_ single building looking for tributes. They're probably searching to see if they can find any on the street or close to them. Why would they come up our apartment block? It would make more sense to stay here and wait for them to pass and once they're out of sight, go down." This comes from Silvia.

"Yeah but what if they decide to come up our building? Then what do we do? Even if the odds of them coming up here are slim, in the event that they do, how do we escape without confronting them? There's only one way in and out. It's not like we can jump out the window if they're coming up. How can we be sure that they _won't_ be coming up? The smartest thing to do is get out of here as quickly as possible before they decide what to do." Responds Mai. By this point, they're both arguing and screaming. The careers have noticed us, and they're headed towards the building.

* * *

**Autumn Govern's POV District 12's Female Tribute**

Going to the residential area was a pretty good idea. We didn't run into any tributes, and shelter is all around us. I got to sleep in a bed last night, something I never imagined that I'd do in the Hunger Games. I guess this arena ended up being a benefit for us. We decided to not stay in the same place all the time, so we all agreed to move houses every morning, that way if other tributes won't be able to pinpoint us so easily.

We stroll around the neighborhood of houses. Every house looks exactly like the typical houses you see in films. Well, houses from really old films, from the Pre-Panem era. The Pre-Panem era was the time before Panem arose from ashes. Then there came the Panem era, there are two sections in this era: The Pre-Hunger Games era, and the Post-Hunger Games era, one being before the Hunger Games were invented and the other being our current era, once the games have already been invented and are taking place. We decide to enter into on of the houses to have a food break. This is going to have to be our breakfast and lunch. As we enter the house I notice that there is a bookshelf on corner of the house. I walk over to it and take a book. It's extremely dusty, I blow some of it off the cover, enough so that I can read the title. Harry Potter. What an odd name. Names in the Pre-Panem era were really weird. They called children names like Molly and David. I know quite a few people in 12 that have names from the Pre-Panem era. Apparently their parents like these very old classical names. In our time, every District has their own series of names that they call their children. In District 1 people call their children things like Ruby and Gloss. They're kids are named after gems or words that resemble light. In District 2 & 6 they take names from ancient mythology. Names like Andromeda, Heleus, Ares and Hermes are quite common. In fact I quite like these kinds of names. Surprisingly this year there are a lot of tributes with names coming from the Pre-Panem era.

Lost in thought, I barley realize Austin calling for me. I turn my head towards him and see him next to some hidden passage door.

"We found a secret basement right here." He says, and points to the passage. I walk over to him as he climbs down the old ladder. I climb down with him. I find myself in a brick room with torches around it. There are cobwebs in the corners. There's quite a lot of dust on the floor too.

"Autumn, we found supplies!" yells Austin as I head over to him. There are four backpacks, two small black boxes, and a first aid kit. I take one of the boxes and open it and find it full of food of all sorts. I start filling my backpack up with us much of it as I can fit in there. I then proceed to examine the contents of the one of the backpacks. It's like the ones you find at the cornucopia, it has the same supplies as the one I got. Except this one has small binoculars. This doesn't make sense. Why would there randomly be all these supplies here in a room that wasn't even too hard to find? Tristan just pulled a lever and a passage opened up. This was too easy, plus the lever wasn't even hidden.

"Oh my god guys…" Makayla interrupted my train of thought.

"What is it?" I said in annoyance as I turned around to see whatever she was complaining about. I noticed my eyes widening in fear as a current of lava headed towards us. Where did this come from? I notice two holes in the ceiling of the room where the lava is coming from. We have to get out here now. I can feel the heat of the burning substance heading towards us penetrating my skin. Makayla and Tristan are almost out of the room in a blink of an eye, they barley took anything with them, just a first aid kit and a tiny backpack with food. I grab two backpacks as I run in their direction, but the room begins to shake and I trip over. Ruble begins to fall from the ceiling as parts of the room collapse. Loud bangs are heard, and a rock falls onto the lava causing some of it to splash near me. I know a few drops have hit me when a pang of pain hits my left hand. I get up quickly and look behind me once more to see if Austin is okay. I see him stuffing his backpack with supplies.

"Austin we have to get out of here! What are you doing?! We don't have time!" I yell on the top of my lungs with every inch of desperation in my voice. No reply, just a slight groan as a small rock falls onto his shoulder. The lava has now engulfed half of the room, and more keeps pouring out of the wholes in the ceiling. I hate to do this, but I need to move on, and if in order to survive I must leave Austin behind, then so be it. I leave quickly as the room collapses behind me, I find the passage where the 11's left through and I go through there. Once I'm through the entrance I risk a glance back and I find the whole floor of the room covered in lava, I hear shouts of pain from the very back of the room, recognizing Austin's voice sends a pang of guilt and sorrow through me. But I did what I had to do, I'd be dead if I'd done otherwise. The whole room now collapses at once. I manage to hear a cannon in the distance. Well, District 12's hopes are on me now.

I walk through the passageway behind the 11's. I hate myself, I hate these games, I hate Austin for being so greedy. I just want to go home. I don't want to stay here anymore, but I have no choice. Ugh. If only Austin would've looked around, maybe that would've knocked some sense into him. The truth is, there's no room for greedy people in the games, and it's better off that he dies like this than to the hand of a career. We finally make it back to the house, and we don't hesitate to leave it behind. As we walk outside, the night falls on the arena. The anthem will play soon, and Austin's face will illuminate the sky with the rest of the fallen tributes. But now that I think about it, I believe it was only Austin that died. We didn't hear any other cannons, so that would indicate that there are only 17 tributes standing. Which is quite a lot, but it surely makes me one step closer to coming home, if I win of course. Which is highly unlikely considering my odds that the Gamemakers gave me. Apparently I have the odds of 27-1 of coming out alive. I guess they should've slightly improved since 7 tributes are dead.

Loud music invades my ears and I'm quick to recognize it. The anthem. Austin's face solitarily illuminates the sky, it's quick to fade away. Then a big 17 pops up indicating that there are 17 tributes remaining. The sky now darkens. Sleep beings to consume me. I don't fight it.

* * *

**Blight Bowers' POV District 7 Male Mentor**

I watch Nathan take watch as Abigail falls rapidly to sleep. We had a fairly successful day, no fights, no inconveniences. So far so good. I look around the control room and find that quite a few mentors have already left. Joanna has left, and so have Heleus, Memory, and a few other mentors, which usually stay longer. The District 1 Female Mentor is still there, I think she was called Spinelle. Then there's Cecilia, the District 8 Female Mentor. I've talked to her once or twice before, she's usually cheerful except when the Hunger Games take place. It's like someone sucks the life out of her on Reaping Day. Demeter, the District 10 Male Mentor is also here, and Haymitch District 12's only mentor.

I look over at the death board. The only new addition to it is the District 12 boy. Both of my tributes are still alive, as expected. Last year we had a very good pair: A smart girl, Hannah, and a very strong boy, Joshua. Hannah came 6th and Joshua came 5th. Hannah decided to take on Joanna's strategy for the games and pulled it off very well, of course after a while people began to figure out her trick, especially since Joanna had used the strategy during the 69th Hunger Games, just 2 years before. That's why she didn't have the upper hand anymore when she fought against the District 9 Female. She fought well, but the girl from 9 was simply better. Joshua was different. I suppose the games changed him over time. I don't know what happened, but one night, he found the District 6 girl and the District 4 boy, which were in an alliance, he completely lost it and got into a fight with them. The District 4 boy and Joshua killed each other. Joshua knew he couldn't win against a team of two. Yet he picked that fight, I presume it was because he lost his mind, but I figured it could've also been an indirect suicide. He didn't want to show to Panem he was weak, and decided to die in a fight he knew he couldn't win. But why suicide? He was one of the strongest left, why take his own life after he'd gone so far? Questions I still have not managed to find the answer to. I look back over to my control screen; a shot of Nathan is shown while he sits on the edge of the apartment looking out at the abandoned city he's been left in. We've got a chance this year. Nathan's will to protect his sister is strong, he'll give up his life for her, and Abigail is a strong fighter herself, I believe in them.

* * *

**A/N: OH LORD JESUS IT'S A FIRE! I'm sooo sorry for not updating in like 2 months or whatever. I've been busy, but mainly lazy. This past 2 weeks I've has exams so that's a bit of a valid excuse… I guess. I have been extremely lazy and kept on telling to myself: "I'll put up a new chapter next week" every freaking week. So I'm sorry. Forgive me? Yes? No? Maybe? :D I DO NEED YOU GUYS TO REVIEW! Part of what made me put up a new chapter a review I got begging me to write more, so pleaaaaaseee REVIEW and go on my poll and vote for your favorite character, a winner hasn't been determined yet so you have a chance at maybe making your favorite character last longer, or even win! :O**

**Dead Tributes:**

**24****th**** Place: **Rylie Naples (District 9 Female)  
Killed by: Landmine  
Place: Pedal stone  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:00:00

**23****rd**** Place: **Malik Stevens (District 9 Male)  
Killed by: Melissa Hemmis (District 2 Female)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:00:56

**22****nd**** Place: **Evan Stein (District 6 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Braydon Serre (District 5 Male)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:01:03

**21****st**** Place: **Braydon Serre (District 5 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Keaton Lentz (District 1 Male)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:01:43

**20****th**** Place: **Darren Hacker (District 3 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Sophia Press (District 4 Female)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:02:01

**19****th**** Place: **Andrew Stang (District 10 Male)  
Place: Cornucopia Bloodbath  
Killed by: Claire Cludiant (District 1 Female)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 00:00:03:05

**18th Place:** Austin Pelikan (District 12 Male)  
Place: Residential Area  
Killed by: Gamemakers (Lava/Rubble Trap)  
Time in the Games (days/hours/minutes/seconds): 01:13:56:13

**Living Tributes:**

**District 1:**

Female: Claire Cludiant (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

Male: Keaton Gold (17)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 5-1

**District 2:**

Female: Melissa Hemmis (16)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

Male: Logan Voss (18)  
Training Score: 10  
Odds of winning: 4-1

**District 3:**

Female: Ariadna Meyer (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 29-1

**District 4:**

Female: Sophia Press (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 7-1

Male: Dale Alderman (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 6-1

**District 5:**

Female: Silvia Heffernan (15)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

**District 6:**

Female: Mai Kilson (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 20-1

**District 7:**

Female: Abigail Gould (16)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 22-1

Male: Nathan Gould (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 8:**

Female: Lillian Conner (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1

Male: Hunter Lever (17)  
Training Score: 9  
Odds of winning: 8-1

**District 9:**

**District 10:**

Female: Iris Perricone (14)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 15-1

**District 11:**

Female: Makayla Zideck (15)  
Training Score: 6  
Odds of winning: 35-1

Male: Tristan Ray (18)  
Training Score: 8  
Odds of winning: 14-1

**District 12:**

Female: Autumn Govern (16)  
Training Score: 7  
Odds of winning: 27-1


End file.
